The Midtown Scholar is pleased to welcome award-winning Guardian journalist Chris McGreal to Harrisburg to discuss his new book, American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts, a detailed account of the history of the American opioid epidemic. McGreal will be in conversation with WITF's Brett Sholtis. This event is free and open to the public. Book signing to follow discussion. 

About the Book:

A comprehensive portrait of a uniquely American epidemic–devastating in its findings and damning in its conclusions.

The opioid epidemic has been called “one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine.” But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of history. Driven by greed, incompetence, and indifference, it was an utterly avoidable tragedy.

Chris McGreal reveals this in his deeply reported account, covering everyone from the law enforcement who struggled to get prosecutors to go after the doctors they called “drug dealers in white coats;” to miners who grew addicted to opioids while trying to ease the pain of their strenuous job; to physicians and scientists who tried to warn of an epidemic; to a teenage girl dragged into the heroin trade.

American Overdose also presents new evidence of Big Pharma’s domination of the healthcare system as it flooded the country with opioids. It exposes how the Food and Drug Administration and Congress were coopted into the drive to push painkillers–resulting ultimately in the rise and resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland.

McGreal tells the story, in terms both broad and intimate, of a population hit by a catastrophe they never saw coming. It was years in the making; and its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the future.

About the Author:

Chris McGreal is a reporter for the Guardian and former journalist at the BBC. He was the Guardian’s correspondent in Johannesburg, Jerusalem and Washington DC, and now writes from across the United States. He has won several awards including for his reporting of the genocide in Rwanda, coverage of Israel/Palestine, and for writing on the impact of economic recession in modern America. He received the James Cameron prize for “work as a journalist that has combined moral vision and professional integrity”. He was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism for reporting that “penetrated the established version of events and told an unpalatable truth”. He is a former merchant seaman.

About the Interviewer: 

Brett Sholtis is WITF's Transforming Health Reporter. He covers health care and community health issues throughout the region.
In his life before journalism, Brett served in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in Kosovo and worked in the motorcycle industry in Southern California. Originally from Cambria County, he's proud to report news for his home state.

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is thrilled to welcome Tori Telfer to the stage to discuss her book, Lady Killers! A book signing will follow discussion. This event is free and open to the public.

About the Book

Inspired by author Tori Telfer's Jezebel column “Lady Killers,” this thrilling and entertaining compendium investigates female serial killers and their crimes through the ages.

When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are ones like Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, Kate Bender? The narrative we’re comfortable with is the one where women are the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally, overwhelmingly male that in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared in a homicide conference, “There are no female serial killers.”

Lady Killers, based on the popular online series that appeared on Jezebel and The Hairpin, disputes that claim and offers fourteen gruesome examples as evidence. Though largely forgotten by history, female serial killers such as Erzsébet Báthory, Nannie Doss, Mary Ann Cotton, and Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova rival their male counterparts in cunning, cruelty, and appetite for destruction.

Each chapter explores the crimes and history of a different subject, and then proceeds to unpack her legacy and her portrayal in the media, as well as the stereotypes and sexist clichés that inevitably surround her. The first book to examine female serial killers through a feminist lens with a witty and dryly humorous tone, Lady Killers dismisses easy explanations (she was hormonal, she did it for love, a man made her do it) and tired tropes (she was a femme fatale, a black widow, a witch), delving into the complex reality of female aggression and predation. Featuring 14 illustrations from Dame Darcy, Lady Killers is a bloodcurdling, insightful, and irresistible journey into the heart of darkness.

About the Author

Tori Telfer graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing. Her writing has appeared in  the Atlantic, Smithsonian, Vulture, Salon, Vice, Jezebel, The Hairpin, The Awl,  and elsewhere. Her screenplay, Detective in the City of Beautiful Women, was awarded honorable mention in the Table Read My Screenplay contest. She has written, produced, and directed two plays, and has a podcast called Criminal Broads.

Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey has been called "a masterpiece of translation," "a poetic feast," and "a staggeringly superior translation." Meanwhile, Madeline Miller's novel Circe, a creative retelling of the goddess Circe's story, took the world by storm this summer, quickly becoming a #1 New York Times Bestseller. 

The Midtown Scholar is thrilled to welcome author and scholar Emily Wilson and welcome BACK Madeline Miller for a conversation on translating The Odyssey.

About Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey:

A lean, fleet-footed translation that recaptures Homer’s “nimble gallop” and brings an ancient epic to new life.

The first great adventure story in the Western canon, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty, and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home.

In this fresh, authoritative version—the first English translation of The Odysseyby a woman—this stirring tale of shipwrecks, monsters, and magic comes alive in an entirely new way. Written in iambic pentameter verse and a vivid, contemporary idiom, this engrossing translation matches the number of lines in the Greek original, thus striding at Homer’s sprightly pace and singing with a voice that echoes Homer’s music.

Wilson’s Odyssey captures the beauty and enchantment of this ancient poem as well as the suspense and drama of its narrative. Its characters are unforgettable, from the cunning goddess Athena, whose interventions guide and protect the hero, to the awkward teenage son, Telemachus, who struggles to achieve adulthood and find his father; from the cautious, clever, and miserable Penelope, who somehow keeps clamoring suitors at bay during her husband’s long absence, to the “complicated” hero himself, a man of many disguises, many tricks, and many moods, who emerges in this translation as a more fully rounded human being than ever before.

A fascinating introduction provides an informative overview of the Bronze Age milieu that produced the epic, the major themes of the poem, the controversies about its origins, and the unparalleled scope of its impact and influence. Maps drawn especially for this volume, a pronunciation glossary, and extensive notes and summaries of each book make this an Odyssey that will be treasured by a new generation of scholars, students, and general readers alike.

About Circe:

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child–not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power–the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man’s world.

Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Philadelphia.

Madeline Miller was born in Boston and attended Brown University where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. She lives in Narbeth, PA with her husband and two children. The Song of Achilles was awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction and has been translated into twenty-five languages.

Join us at the Scholar for an evening of American History!

The Midtown Scholar is thrilled to welcome Andrew Delbanco to our stage to discuss his book, The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul From the Revolution to the Civil War. This event is free and open to the public.

About the Book:

The devastating story of how fugitive slaves drove the nation to Civil War.

For decades after its founding, America was really two nations–one slave, one free. There were many reasons why this composite nation ultimately broke apart, but the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the “united” states was actually a lie. Fugitive slaves exposed the contradiction between the myth that slavery was a benign institution and the reality that a nation based on the principle of human equality was in fact a prison-house in which millions of Americans had no rights at all. By awakening northerners to the true nature of slavery, and by enraging southerners who demanded the return of their human “property,” fugitive slaves forced the nation to confront the truth about itself.

The fugitive slave story illuminates what brought us to war with ourselves and the terrible legacies of slavery that are with us still.

About the Author:

Andrew Delbanco is the Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University.  Author of many notable books, including College, Melville, The Death of Satan, Required Reading, The Real American Dream, and The Puritan Ordeal, he was recently appointed president of the Teagle Foundation, which supports liberal education for college students of all backgrounds.  Winner of the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates, he is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. In 2001, Andrew Delbanco was named by Time as “America’s Best Social Critic.” In 2012, President Barack Obama presented him with the National Humanities Medal.

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is pleased to welcome poet Erin Hoover back to her hometown of Harrisburg! Hoover will read from her debut collection of poetry, Barnburner. She will be joined on-stage by Harrisburg's own, Jen Hirt, author of Too Many Questions About Strawberries. This event is free and open to the public! Book signing to follow discussion. 

About the Book:

The epigraph to Barnburner is a call to burn it all down: “According to an old story, there was once a Dutchman who was so bothered by the rats in his barn that he burned down the barn to get rid of them. Thus a barn burner became one who destroyed all in order to get rid of a nuisance.” There is honesty in this epigraph, raw and brutal, like the narrative voices in Erin Hoover’s poems. But there’s an irony at play here, an irony perhaps borrowing a bit from the ironies of Frost’s “Mending Wall”: these poems don’t burn down the cruelties of a homogeneous, racist patriarchy. Instead, they make a muse of it. A muse that can be objectified, stripped bare, and put on a pedestal for all to scorn. 

Hoover fridges that muse so that one speaker of a heroine after another is vaulted by the shock of such violence into a journey of personal discovery. There are mean-spirited, ruthless characters in these poems and, in a kind of reverse Bechdel test, Hoover wipes away their inner lives and never lets them talk to each other about anything except those they have hurt. 

About the Authors:

Erin Hoover’s poems have appeared in the 2016 edition of The Best American Poetry, and recently in Alaska Quarterly Review, Pleiades, and Tampa Review. In addition to teaching, Erin has volunteered extensively, for The Southeast Review (editor in chief), VIDA: Women in Literary Arts (lead PR advisor), Writers Resist/Write Our Democracy (PR advisor), and Late Night Library (co-founder). She currently lives in Tallahassee, Florida, but was born and raised in Central Pennsylvania. 

Jen Hirt is the author of  the poetry chapbook Too Many Questions About Strawberries, the memoir Under Glass: The Girl with a Thousand Christmas Trees, and an essay collection, Hear Me Ohio (forthcoming in 2020). She is the co-editor of Creating Nonfiction: Twenty Essays and Interviews with the Writers and Kept Secret: The Half-Truth in Nonfiction. Her creative writing has won a Pushcart Prize, a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant, and has been shortlisted three times in Best American Essays. Originally from Valley City, Ohio, she now lives in midtown, Harrisburg and is the chair of the English department at Penn State Harrisburg.

This November, the Midtown Scholar Bookstore is thrilled to welcome Philadelphia Eagles beat reporter Zach Berman to Harrisburg to discuss his new book, Underdogs: The Philadelphia Eagles' Emotional Road to Super Bowl Victory. Berman will be joined on-stage by Philadelphia Eagles sideline reporter, Molly Sullivan. This event is free and open to the public. Seating is first come, first served.

About the Event:

Following a season with incredible highs and heartbreaking lows, the Philadelphia Eagles went on to do what fans had all but written off as impossible: for the first time in the franchise's history, Philly won a Super Bowl.

Philadelphia Inquirer Eagles beat reporter Zach Berman takes fans on a journey through the action-packed season -- from the preseason and midseason player pickups that shaped a championship team to the gut-wrenching injury of star quarterback Carson Wentz through to the bold play calling and nail-biting moments in Super Bowl LII, in which the Eagles bested the favored-to-win New England Patriots.

A book unique in its scope and insight thanks to Berman's on-the-ground reporting, Underdogs will detail the unlikely story that captured national attention; explain how the team resonated among a desperate fan base that waited 57 years for a championship; and even delve into the players' social activism during a particularly political NFL season. With a foreword by beloved Philadelphia radio announcer Merrill Reese and an 8-page full-color photo insert, it's the perfect keepsake item for anyone who bleeds green.

During his six years covering the Birds, Berman has developed relationships with some of the most notable characters that led the team to Super Bowl victory. In Underdogs, he'll explain why Nick Foles contemplated retirement on his way to winning Super Bowl MVP. He'll detail Howie Roseman's journey to NFL executive of the year after being cast aside by former coach Chip Kelly. He'll show Malcolm Jenkins' journey to team captain, how Chris Long's life changed in a Tanzania hotel bar, why Eagles kicker Jake Elliott didn't consider football until he was chosen at random at a high school pep rally, and where Carson Wentz ate dinner the night before he left for the NFL Draft. These more obscure stories offer incredible context and depth to an already fascinating story of success against the odds.

About the Author:

Zach Berman covers the Philadelphia Eagles for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. He previously wrote for The Washington Post and Newark Star-Ledger, and was a contributor for The New York Times. He also makes regular television appearances on NBC Sports Philadelphia. Zach is a graduate of Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Emily, and son, Reid.

About the Interviewer:

From covering a 10-win NBA season to reporting on the longest win streak to end the regular season in NBA history, Molly Sullivan made her mark in Philadelphia. Earning the trust and respect of viewers, players, coaches and others around the league, Molly proved to tell the story with a professional and authentic approach.

With 13-years of experience in television, 10 of those years in sports, Molly currently works for the World Champion Philadelphia Eagles as a host and reporter. On gamedays, Molly hosts the pregame and halftime show along with RedZone highlight cut-ins. During the week, Molly serves as a team reporter from practice and covers events around the community. 

In her New York Times bestseller White Rage, Dr. Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Dr. Carol Anderson will deliver the closing keynote address to the Harrisburg Book Festival, offering us a timely glimpse into the history of voter suppression. With vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans as the nation gears up for the 2018 midterm elections.

This event is free and open to the public!

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is proud to present the 2018 Harrisburg Book Festival, now in its sixth year! Events will run from Thurs. 10/11 - Sun. 10/14! For more information, visit http://www.hbgbookfest.com.

Featuring an all-star lineup, the festival's mission is celebrate the transformative power of literature by hosting a four-day festival with some of the most internationally renowned authors working today — right here in Harrisburg. With over a dozen visiting authors — the 2018 Harrisburg Book Festival will showcase a diverse, award-winning lineup featuring panel discussions, keynote presentations, book signings, blind-date-with-a-book, story times, arts & crafts, and more! 

There will be one ticketed event — the opening keynote with Tayari Jones. Every other event is free and open to the public. 

This year’s lineup includes presentations and signings with award-winning authors, including:

•Grammy Nominated Singer/Songwriter and Poet Mary Lambert
•New York Times Bestselling Novelist Tayari Jones
•National Book Critics Winner Critic Carol Anderson
•New York Times Bestselling Historian Liza Mundy
•President Obama’s Speechwriter David Litt
•White House Stenographer Beck Dorey-Stein
•Caldecott Honoree Lauren Castillo
•Children's Author Julia Mallory
•Emerging Novelists Crystal Hana Kim and Lucy Tan
•Chef Joe Beddia, whose pizza was named Bon Appetit Magazine’s “Best Pizza in America”

The Harrisburg Book Festival would not be possible without the generosity of our wonderful sponsors and community partners. Across Central Pennsylvania, these media organizations, businesses, and universities have demonstrated their commitment to — and support of — reading and the literary arts. 

Festival Sponsors: Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, Messiah College
Program Sponsors: Temple University Harrisburg, Susquehanna University
Media Sponsors: TheBurg, WITF
Community Partners: The Millworks, Broad Street Market, Gamut Theatre Group

For more information, visit http://www.hbgbookfest.com

From her performance in Macklemore's "Same Love" — to her smash single, "Secrets," which launched her to No. 1 on the Billboard Dance charts — Mary Lambert has solidified herself as an emerging and important new voice on the scene. Now, the Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, and spoken word performer Mary Lambert can add poet to her list of accomplishments with her debut collection, Shame Is An Ocean I Swim Across. 

Lambert will deliver a spoken word performance, followed by an intimate musical acoustic set. In her new collection, Lambert speaks to anyone who's ever been knocked down―and picked themselves up again. In verse that deals with sexual assault, mental illness, and body acceptance, Lambert provides strength and resilience even in the darkest of times.

This title is available for in-store purchase on Friday, October 12th ONLY. Signed copies will be re-released to the public on its publication date — Tuesday, October 23rd. 

This event will be standing-room only, and entrance is first come, first served. No reservation or ticket is required. Book signing to take place after the performance. 

Oprah's 2018 Book Club Selection. Barack Obama's summer reading recommendation. Instant New York Times Bestseller. You've heard the praise — now meet bestselling novelist and speaker Tayari Jones as she delivers the 2018 Keynote Address for the 2018 Harrisburg Book Festival.

In An American Marriage, Jones takes us to the Deep South, offering us an unforgettable masterpiece of storytelling, and an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.

This is a ticketed event. Book signing to take place after the keynote address. Tickets can be purchased at www.hbgbookfest.com. 

"IT'S AMONG TAYARI'S MANY GIFTS THAT SHE CAN TOUCH US SOUL TO SOUL WITH HER WORDS."

-OPRAH WINFREY

In conjunction with the LGBT Center, the Midtown Scholar Bookstore is pleased to welcome author and TVLine.com founder Michael Ausiello to present his memoir, Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies. A book signing will follow discussion. This event is free and open to the public.

About the Book:

Michael Ausiello is the founder and editor-in-chief of TVLine.com, a television entertainment website owned by Penske Media that launched in 2010. Ausiello began his publishing career in 1997 at Soaps In Depth magazine before moving on to TVGuide.com in 2000, where he debuted his signature, spoiler-tinged “Ask Ausiello” column and established himself as a major player in the world of TV journalism. In 2008, he jumped to Entertainment Weekly, where he penned a column in the magazine as well as an award-winning blog on EW.com (both titled “The Ausiello Files”). He currently splits his time between New York City and Los Angeles.