Visionary Women: Inspirations from Artists, Icons and Activists
Visions and Voices
Summary:
In honor of International Women’s Day, Dinah Lenney will moderate a conversation with authors Angella Nazarian, Karen Karbo and Paula Cizmar, whose diverse body of work illuminates the lives and stories of visionary women around the world.
Description:
In honor of International Women’s Day, join us for a conversation featuring Angella Nazarian, Karen Karbo and Paula Cizmar, whose work illuminates the lives and stories of visionary women around the world. Angella Nazarian is the author of Pioneers of the Possible: Celebrating Visionary Women of the World, a stunning book that profiles twenty women past and present from fields as diverse as art, politics, business, activism, sports and spirituality, including Simone de Beauvoir, Martha Graham, Frida Kahlo, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Zaha Hadid, Jacqueline Novogratz and Dharma master Cheng Yen. Karen Karbo is the acclaimed author of numerous books, including what she calls “the kick ass women trilogy” about three internationally renowned cultural icons—How Georgia Became O’Keefe, How to Hepburn and The Gospel According to Coco Chanel. Award-winning playwright Paula Cizmar is one of the authors of the powerful documentary theatre piece Seven, which tells the stories of seven courageous women activists campaigning for human rights around the globe. The panel will be moderated by Dinah Lenney, faculty member in USC’s Master of Professional Writing program and author of Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir.
About the Panelists:
Paula Cizmar is an award-winning playwright whose work has been produced in venues all over the world, including off Broadway, The Actors Theatre of Louisville, Playwrights’ Arena at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, The Croyden Warehouse in London, the Istanbul International Play Festival and the Women Playwrights International Conference in Stockholm. Her first off-Broadway play, The Death of a Miner, earned Cizmar a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She is also one of the authors of the acclaimed documentary theatre piece Seven, which has been performed in over a dozen countries including India, Nigeria and Argentina. She is an adjunct assistant professor in the dramatic writing program in the USC School of Dramatic Arts. (Twitter)
Karen Karbo’s first novel, Trespassers Welcome Here, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Village Voice Top Ten Book of the Year. Her other two adult novels, The Diamond Lane and Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me, were also named New York Times Notable Books. Her memoir, The Stuff of Life, about the last year she spent with her father before his death, was a New York Times Notable Book and a People magazine Critics’ Choice. Her work has appeared in Elle, Vogue, Esquire, Outside, the New York Times and Salon. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and a winner of the General Electric Younger Writer Award. (Facebook)
Dinah Lenney wrote Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir, published in Tobias Wolff’s American Lives Series at the University of Nebraska Press. Her essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Ploughshares, Creative Nonfiction and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Lenney serves as core faculty in the Master of Professional Writing program at USC, as well as in the Rainier Writing Workshop, and the Bennington Writing Seminars.
Angella Nazarian is an educator, author and dedicated community member with a passion for fostering growth in children and women. She has served as a faculty member at Mount St. Mary’s College; California State University, Long Beach; and Los Angeles Valley College. Nazarian is a member of the Association of Iranian American Writers and the Los Angeles Writers Collective and is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. Her award-winning poetry and writings have been published in New Millennium Writings. Her first book, Life as a Visitor, was a best seller for its publisher, Assouline, and her second book, Pioneers of the Possible: Celebrating Visionary Women of the World, was released in 2012.
Co-sponsored by the USC Panhellenic Council.