Author Panel: "Writing Midlife"

WRITING MIDLIFE: a panel with Sari Botton, Hillary Jordan and Joanna Hershon and Zibby Owens, moderated by Alysia Reiner and produced by Brooke Berman of Ramona at Midlife.

SARI BOTTON’S memoir in essays, And You May Find Yourself.. Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo was chosen by Poets & Writers magazine for the 2022 edition of its annual "5 Over 50" feature. For five years, she was the Essays Editor at Longreads. She edited the bestselling anthologies Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, and Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakeable Love for New York. She publishes , , and .

JOANNA HERSHON is the author of five novels: St. Ivo, Swimming, The Outside of August, The German Bride and A Dual Inheritance. Her writing has appeared in (among other places) The Yale Review, Granta, The New York Times, One Story, The Virginia Quarterly Review, the literary anthologies Brooklyn Was Mine and Freud’s Blind Spot, and was shortlisted for the 2007 O. Henry Prize Stories. She teaches in the Creative Writing department at Columbia University.

HILLARY JORDAN is an internationally-bestselling author, screenwriter, public speaker, and writing teacher. Her two novels, Mudbound and When She Woke, have been translated into 16 languages. Mudbound won the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Conscious Fiction and was adapted into a critically-acclaimed film that received four Academy Award nominations. Hillary is also the co-editor of Anonymous Sex, a collection of literary erotica by prize-winning authors. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Outside Magazine, PASTE, and Elle. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, along with half the writers in America.

ZIBBY OWENS is the founder of Zibby Media which includes the award-winning daily podcast Totally Booked with Zibby, Zibby Publishing in New York, and Zibby’s Bookshop in Santa Monica CA. She is the author of six books including the USA Today bestsellers Blank: A Novel and On Being Jewish Now: Reflections from Authors and Advocates. Follow her on Substack and Instagram @zibbyowens where she tells it like it is.

MODERATED BY:

ALYSIA REINER is best known as Fig on all seven seasons of “Orange Is the New Black” (SAG Award), and for originating Agent Sadie Deever in the 2023 Emmy & Critics Choice Award winning “Ms. Marvel”. She joined the cast of THE DIPLOMAT in season 2 and is currently filming season 3. Other recent TV includes 5 seasons as Sunny on Peabody Award winning “Better Things” (FX/HULU), 2 seasons as Kathryn in Sharon Horgan’s “Shining Vale” (w/ Courtney Cox & Greg Kinnear on HBO MAX), 2 seasons as Kiki on “The Deuce” (HBO), etc. 2024/2025 film releases includes: “The Feeling That The Time for Doing Something Has Passed” (Cannes,TIFF, NYFF), Stampede Ventures' feature film, “Going Places” (Cinequest), & “Ramona At Midlife” (BFF, Woodstock, Berlin Women, etc). Other filmed highlights include Oscar winning “Sideways”, “Broad City” (Emmy winning episode), and going head to head with Viola Davis in “How To Get Away with M**der”, etc. Alysia has performed on stages from Apollo Theatre in Harlem NYC, to the Edinburgh Festival (where she won a Critics Choice Award). Select NY theatre includes: An Oak Tree with Tim Crouch (Special Obie), My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre (The Public), Jesus in Manhattan (EST), Jayson with a Y (The New Group), Pentecost (Barrow Group).

BROOKE BERMAN’s feature debut Ramona At Midlife premiered at Geena Davis’s Bentonville Film Festival and has screened at festivals including: Woodstock, Heartland, Mystic (Audience Choice), NYITFF (Audience Choice, Best Feature), Florida Film Festival, Pasadena International Film Festival (nominated for Best Actress and Best Feature), Omaha Film Festival, and Ridgefield Independent Film Festival where it won the prestigious Fountain Award.

Brooke’s plays have been produced at theaters including Steppenwolf, Second Stage, Primary Stages and The Humana Festival. She has a has written films for Natalie Portman, The Mark Gordon Company, Vox Films, Fugitive Films and Red Crown. She adapted and directed the short U4G which premiered at the Aspen International ShortsFest where it won Audience Special Recognition. ALL SAINTS DAY, a short film Brooke wrote, directed by Will Frears, won Best Narrative Short at the Savannah Film Festival and played at the Tribeca Film Festival. She is a graduate of Juilliard’s Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights program and attended Barnard College. Brooke’s memoir No Place Like Home (Random House, 2010) is now available on Audible. She has been a fellow at Macdowell and Yaddo and is an alumna of New Dramatists. She teaches at NYU.

www.ramonaatmidlife.com

[ABOUT THIS EVENT: The rear half of the store will be used exclusively for this event. The front bar will be open to the public for drinking & chatting. Book browsing will be limited to a few display tables and shelves closest to the front of the store.]

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