About this Event
Please welcome Maggie Smith in conversation with Grace Farris to celebrate the paperback release of You Could Make This Place Beautiful!
This event is free and open to the public.
- Start time: 7:00 P.M.
- Run time: 45-60 minutes, followed by a signing line.
- Location: The second floor of BookPeople.
The author will be signing and personalizing copies of the book after the speaking portion of the event.
- To get a book signed, a copy of the event book or an item of equal value must be purchased from BookPeople.
Guidelines:
- Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.
- There will not be a live stream or recording available.
- BookPeople reserves the right to cancel or postpone this event if necessary.
- If you have any other questions, please visit our Eventbrite FAQ. If your question isn't covered in the FAQ, feel free to email us at [email protected].
About the book:
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NPR Best Book of the Year • Time Best Book of the Year • Oprah Daily Best Memoir of the Year
“A bittersweet study in both grief and joy.” —Time
“A sparklingly beautiful memoir-in-vignettes” (Isaac Fitzgerald, New York Times bestselling author) that explores coming of age in your middle age—from the bestselling poet and author of Keep Moving.
“Life, like a poem, is a series of choices.”
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself. The book begins with one woman’s personal heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is “extraordinary” (Ann Patchett) in the way that it reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new and beautiful.
About the author:
Maggie Smith is the award-winning author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, Lamp of the Body, and the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received several Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Best American Poetry, and more. You can follow her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet.
About the moderator:
GRACE FARRIS is a mom, doctor, and illustrator. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, BuzzFeed, and she writes a weekly comic for the lifestyle blog Cup of Jo. Her comics and illustrations have been featured in exhibitions in the UK, Ireland, Austria and across the US. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her family. She is the author of Mom Milestones: The TRUE Story of the First Seven Years. Visit Grace at farrisgrace.com and on Instagram at @coupdegracefarris
By purchasing a book from BookPeople, you are not only supporting a local, independent business – you’re showing publishers that they should continue sending authors to BookPeople.
Thank you for supporting Maggie Smith, Grace Farris, and your local independent bookstore!
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
BookPeople, 603 North Lamar Boulevard, Austin, United States
USD 0.00
