Writers@Grinnell To Welcome Keah Brown and Lyn Lenz on Sept. 12
Writers@Grinnell will feature authors Keah Brown and Lyz Lenz on Thursday, Sept. 12, when they will lead a roundtable discussion about writing at 4:15 p.m. in Room 209 of the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center and then read from their works at 8 p.m. in Room 101 of the Rosenfield Center.
Event Information
Time: Roundtable discussion at 4:15 p.m., followed by the reading at 8 p.m.
Date: Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019
Place: Roundtable discussion in Room 209, Rosenfield Center, reading in Room 101 of the Rosenfield Center, 1115 Eighth Ave., Grinnell
The series will welcome Keah Brown and Lyz Lenz to campus to read from their works and lead a joint roundtable discussion about writing. Both events are free and open to the public.
Speaker Bios
Keah Brown is a journalist, disability-justice advocate and author of the essay collection The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture & Other Reasons To Fall in Love with Me. Her work also has been published in Marie Claire UK, Glamour magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Teen Vogue, Allure magazine, Essence magazine, and more.
Through her writing, Brown, who has cerebral palsy, seeks to improve the way people with disabilities are represented in the media. In her cover story in Teen Vogue, she wrote about the challenges that models with disabilities encounter in the fashion industry. In 2018 Brown was named one of The Root’s 100 most influential African Americans. The Root: Black News, Opinions, Politics and Culture is a progressive online magazine for African American influencers.
Lyz Lenz of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is author of a new book, God Land, which explores faith, loss, and hope in the middle of America. In 2016, Lenz saw her marriage end, her church fail, and her country fall apart. Her book, published by Indiana University Press, investigates these changes on a personal and a national scale. It also addresses questions of whether our personal and political divides can ever be bridged and whether America can ever come together.
Her second book, Belabored, will be published next spring by Bold Type Books. Lenz also wrote an essay, All the Angry Women, which was included in the anthology Not that Bad, edited by Roxane Gay. Lenz’s writing also has appeared in The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other national media. In addition, Lenz is a columnist for The Cedar Rapids Gazette and a contributing writer to Columbia Journalism Review.