Brickell Avenue Literary Society

Membership Brickell Avenue Literary Society is a not-for-profit membership organization which hosts notable authors at eight luncheon meetings each year. Membership is open to all lovers of literature. BOARD OF ADVISORS

Full membership. : Dues are $250/year for Pam Rogers and Debra Scholl individuals and $400/year for couples in the Co-Chairs same household. There is an additional charge of $50 for each meeting attended to cover Raphael Bastian Secretary the cost of lunch and a signed copy of the speaker’s book. Elizabeth Coppolecchia Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair Young professional memberships are available to those 35 years old or younger. Marcia Cooke Author Events Committee Chair Dues are $95/year and $30 for each

meeting attended, which includes lunch Debra Scholl and a signed copy of the speaker’s book. Governance and Nominating Committee Chair

All memberships are effective for one Diane Grob season, which runs approximately September James M. Herron through May. Mitchell Kaplan 2018-2019 Leila Kight Please visit our webiste or contact us at: Michael Lewis Season www.BrickellLiterary.org Ray E. Marchman, Jr. 786-691-4521 or Dahlia Morgan Patricia M. Papper [email protected] Lawrence Raab Joan G. Robbins Charles Sacher Guest Policy Terry Schechter Andrew Smulian SPONSORED BY Both full members and young profession- al members are invited to bring as many guests as you like, paying only the meeting fee ($50 or $30). However, no guest may attend AND more than two meetings per year. All guests Brickell Avenue Literary Society should be encouraged to become members of 18495 S. Dixie Highway Brickell Avenue Literary Society. #312 Miami, FL 33157 786.691.4521 [email protected] Jones is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers Gary Shteyngart and recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Ayad Akhtar Wednesday, September 26, 2018 at 12:00 P.M. Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Thursday, February 14, 2019 at 12:00 P.M. Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the United States Artist Fellowship, the NEA Fellowship, and the Radcliffe he New York Times best-selling author, Gary Shteyn- yad Akhtar is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter, and T Institute Bunting Fellowship. Her writing has appeared in A gart, returns with a biting, brilliant, emotionally resonant actor whose 2013 play, Disgraced, won a Pulitzer Prize and Tin House, The Believer, The New York Times, and Callaloo. novel very much of our times. Lake Success is the funniest was nominated for a Tony Award. He is also the recipient book you’ll read all year. But the surprise here is the novel’s of an Award in Literature from the American Academy of epic sweep, its melancholy resonance. What begins as a Letters, two Obie awards, a Jeff award, an Independent rollicking and zinger-filled road trip sneakily deepens into a Sloane Crosley Spirit Award nomination, and the Outer Critics Circle poignant tale of a man trying to outrace his problems. Mr. Tuesday, December 18, 2018 at 12:00 P.M. John Gassner Award. His most recent work, Junk, is, Shteyngart was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the according to the Los Angeles Times, “dramatically United States seven years later. He has won the Bollinger enthralling…a thrilling play…a modern morality tale…in a loane Crosley is a New York Times best-selling novelist Everyman Wodehouse Prize, the Stephen Crane Award for S world where money, the new might, now makes right.” and essayist, and a finalist for The Thurber Prize for Ameri- First Fiction, and the National Jewish Book Award for can Humor. She is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, was Fiction. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Travel + the founding columnist for The New York Times "Townies" Leisure, Esquire, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, and Op-Ed series, a columnist for The New York Observer Diary, many other publications, and has been translated into a columnist for The Village Voice, a contributing editor at Elliot Ackerman twenty-six languages. BlackBook Magazine, and is a regular contributor to The New Thursday, March 21, 2019 at 12:00 P.M. York Times, GQ, Elle and NPR. Her latest work, Look Alive Out There: Essays, an Amazon Best Book, is a collection National Book Award finalist and former White House Alexander Chee of essays filled with her trademark wit and charm. Esquire Fellow Elliot Ackerman served five tours of duty in Iraq and Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 12:00 P.M. says that Ms. Crosley “wields her wit and commands all of Afghanistan and is the recipient of the Silver Star, the your attention in her third collection of insightful and Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. His essays and hilarious personal essays.” A fter penning two successful novels, Alexander Chee fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The has written a masterful book about the art of writing, which New York Times Magazine, and The New Republic, among also speaks eloquently about the art of life. Among many other publications. Mr. Ackerman’s third novel, Waiting admiring reviewers of How to Write an Autobiographical Min Jin Lee for Eden, is a breathtakingly spare and shattering work that traces the intersection of three star-crossed lives. Gorgeous- Novel, one from National Public Radio said, “Chee's Friday, January 18, 2019 at 12:00 P.M. writing has a mesmerizing quality; his sentences are rife ly constructed, it is a deeply felt meditation on loyalty and with profound truths without lapsing into the betrayal, love and fear. didactic...Chee is a very special artist; his writing is lyrical Min Jin Lee's extraordinary novel, Pachinko, was a and accessible, whimsical and sad, often all at the same finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and a New time." Mr. Chee has to his credit a Whiting Award and a York Times 10 Best Books of 2017. The sweeping four-gen- National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and he is eration saga of a Korean family's fight to control their John Burnham Schwartz associate professor of English and Creative Writing at destiny in 20th century Japan won a spot on more than 75 Thursday, April 18, 2019 at 12:00 P.M. Dartmouth College, where he nurtures young talent. With best books lists, including NPR, PBS and CNN. Ms. Lee is this, his first book of non-fiction, Mr. Chee is certain to a recipient of fellowships in Fiction from the Guggenheim ohn Burnham Schwartz’s eagerly anticipated sixth secure his place as one of the finest essayists of his genera- Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study J novel, The Red Daughter, is a sweeping historical story of tion. at Harvard. Her writings have appeared in The New Yorker, Stalin’s daughter and her defection to the USA. It's a great NPR's Selected Shorts, The New York Review of Books, The New read and certain to appeal to the many fans of A Gentleman York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The in Moscow. Screenwriting credits include the film, Reserva- Tayari Jones Guardian, Times of London, and The Wall Street Journal. Wednesday, November 14, 2018 at 12:00 P.M. tion Road, based on his novel of the same title, and the 2017 award-winning HBO television drama, Wizard of Lies, which he co-wrote with legendary producer Barry Levinson and Tayari Jones’ riveting new novel, An American Sam Baum. His articles appear in publications including Marriage, is both a love story and an incisive commentary The New Yorker and The New York Times Book Review, and he on the vagaries of the social justice system. Filled with has taught fiction writing at Harvard, The University of breathtaking twists and turns, the story is exquisitely Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and Sarah Lawrence College. He rendered, timely and powerful. It is a New York Times is currently the Literary Director of the Sun Valley Writers’ best-seller and an Oprah 2018 Book Club selection. Ms. Conference.