About this Event
Doors open at 6pm. The program includes a conversation between Medel and Chavez, followed by a wine reception and book signing in partnership with Politics & Prose Bookstore.
Elena Medel is the Cheuse Center’s 2022 International Writer-in-Residence, in partnership with the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington DC.
*
Elena Medel is a writer and the founder and publisher of the poetry publishing house La Bella Varsovia. She was the first woman ever to win the prestigious Francisco Umbral Prize for her debut novel, The Wonders (2020), which was also longlisted for the Finestres Award and has been translated into more than fifteen languages, becoming a literary sensation. Medel published her prize-winning first collection of poetry, My First Bikini, when she was sixteen years old, and has won other prizes for her work, including the XXVI Loewe Prize for Young Writers and the Princess of Girona Foundation Award 2016 in the Arts and Literature Category, and is one of the ‘12 Essential Spanish-language Female Authors’ according to Publishers Weekly. She is also the author of three essay collections on poetry and has published a children’s book. She currently lives in Madrid.
Linda Chavez has had a long and varied career in American politics that stretches across the political spectrum, both in and out of government. She served as the highest-ranking woman in the Reagan White House, became the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Maryland, and founded a series of public policy organizations focusing on race, ethnicity, and immigration. Before she joined the Reagan administration, she edited the American Educator and American Teacher, publications of the American Federation of Teachers, worked in the Carter Administration’s Office of Management and Budget, served on the professional staff of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate period, and worked at the Democratic National Committee. She also served a four-year term (1992-1996) as the U.S. Expert to the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and as the Chair of the National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992). In 2000, she was honored by the Library of Congress as a Living Legend.
Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Forbes, Commentary Magazine, National Review, and Readers Digest, among others. In 2010, Chavez began writing and publishing fiction. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University in 2012, at the age of 65. Her stories have appeared in Commentary, Red Rock Review and Persimmon Tree. In 2015, her story “The Vigil,” was selected for inclusion in the Silver Pen Writers’ Write Well Award Anthology. Her forthcoming novel The Conversos is the story of her family’s decision to leave Sevilla for the New World in 1597 and is based loosely on an episode of “Finding Your Roots,” which profiled her family’s history. She is the mother of three sons and nine grandchildren. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband Chris Gersten.
*
Art: Stephanie Benassi: “Money, Beauty, Rank: The Measure of All Things”
*
The Cheuse Center for International Writers at George Mason University was founded in 2016 with a two-fold mission: Support and help international writers and translators to gain a broader American audience; and provide young American writers travel fellowships in order to pursue international creative projects. Named in honor of Alan Cheuse, the late American writer and cultural commentator who taught at George Mason for almost 30 years, the Cheuse Center is a vibrant literary institution enriching the artistic and intellectual communities of George Mason University, the metropolitan region of Washington, D.C., and literary organizations around the globe.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Former Residence of the Ambassadors of Spain, 2801 16th Street Northwest, Washington, United States
USD 0.00