Mini Fest
Thursday, February 22
10:30 a.m.
Web developer and game designer Chris Klimas talks about the roots of the interactive text-based storytelling tool Twine, and the potentials of nonlinear and multilinear storytelling in game design, fiction, poetry, and more. In 2009, Klimas created Twine, and continues to lead the project. Over the last two decades, he’s also created parser-based interactive fiction, choice-based narrative games, and story-centered games in other genres.
Location: Fenwick Reading Room, 2001, Fenwick Library, George Mason University
12 p.m.
Michelle Brafman’s novel Swimming with Ghosts is a story of addiction, secrets, and a cultish Northern Virginia swim team. When the freak 2012 derecho storm knocked out power for days, old ghosts and simmering tension boils over between two best friends and swim moms. Brafman talks about her newest work, her writing process, and how her faith has informed her writing – through the stories of Bertrand Court, and the novel Washing the Dead. Sponsored by Judaic Studies.
Location: Fenwick Reading Room, 2001, Fenwick Library, George Mason University
1:30 p.m.
Three writers discuss how displacement, migration, and change connect with their identity. Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is editor of and contributor to Relations: An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices, which “punctures the human illusion of separation.” She is joined by contributor Kim Coleman Foote, author of the story “Dirty Money,” and the novel Coleman Hill: A Novel, a kaleidoscopic novel set during the early days of America’s Great Migration that blends real family legend with historical record, and imagination. Itoro Bassey discusses her novel Faith, about a first-generation Nigerian-American woman who resettles in Nigeria. This event is presented in partnership with the Alan Cheuse Center for International Writers.
Location: Fenwick Reading Room, 2001, Fenwick Library, George Mason University
3 p.m.
Hanna Pylväinen’s novel, The End of Drum-Time, gorgeously paints a picture of a world in a remote Scandinavian village, circa 1850, as Ivvár, the son of a Sámi reindeer herder falls in love with Willa, the daughter of a Lutheran minister who is working to convert the natives to his faith. Despite a clash of their cultural, religious, and political backgrounds, the lovers find themselves bound together as they follow the herders on their annual migration north to the sea. The End of Drum-Time was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Location: Fenwick Reading Room, 2001, Fenwick Library, George Mason University
7 p.m.
Marlon James has won high praise for his Dark Star Trilogy – which Entertainment Weekly describes as “drenched in African myth and folklore.” The first book, Black Leopard, Red Wolf was a finalist for the National Book Award, and was named one of TIME’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time. Now James is back with the second installment, Moon Witch, Spider King, which flips the story on its head, retelling it from the Moon Witch’s perspective – a tale that’s “part adventure tale, part chronicle of an indomitable woman who bows to no man.” Salman Rushdie praises the sequel, saying it’s “A fabulist reimagining of Africa, with inevitable echoes of Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, and Black Panther.” Sponsored by the George Mason Friends.
Location: Harris Theater, 4471 Aquia Creek Lane, Fairfax, VA.
Click here to reserve your free ticket on Eventbrite starting February 15.