September 6 @ 14th & V: The United States and Saudi Arabia have radically different views on global geo-politics, human rights, and much else. Yet the two countries in are allies, if sometimes wary ones. In her brisk yet detailed analysis of the history of U.S.-Saudi relations, Madea Benjamin lays bare the contradictions at the heart of this unlikely alliance, looking beyond the diplomatic rhetoric to explore what it really rests on.

September 7 @ 14th & V: Mary Karr’s primer on writing a memoir is as compelling as the actual memories she recounted in The Liars’ Club, Cherry, and Lit. Mining her experience of chronicling her Texas childhood and adolescence, her marriage, and her struggle to become a writer, Karr illuminates key questions about how to use identity and memory to project an authentic voice, how to be honest, and how to identify and convey pivotal moments.

September 8 @ 5th & K: Former CEO of EMILY’s List and past president of Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ organization, Joe Solmonese knows a lot about how to make change happen. As his stories of successful social justice campaigns illustrate, a key part of Solmonese’s strategy has been harnessing anger: by viewing it as energy, Solmonese learned how to direct it.

In Tahir’s sequel to An Ember in the Ashes, Laia and Elias escape the devastating rebellion being staged by the Scholars. Branded as traitors and on the run, the two must also find a way to elude Elias’s mother and Emperor Marcus while attempting to rescue Laia’s brother. The Rose and the Dagger continues Ahdieh’s retelling of The Arabian Nights and details Shahrzad’s quest to break the curse that holds her husband, Khalid, in thrall. Reunited with her family but held captive by her fears for the future, she must outwit a former flame, who now leads a movement to overthrow Caliph Khalid, and discover powers within herself that she never thought could exist. For ages 14 and up.

Deconstructing Children’s Literature: What books have stayed with you since childhood? In this class, we will read, deconstruct and discuss classic and contemporary children’s picture books through lens of genre: fiction, narrative non-fiction, poetry, folk tales and meta-fiction.

Memoir Writing Workshop: Memoir, like all creative non-fiction, relies on literary craft tools such as scene and plot to mold a clear storyline and develop characters. This five-meeting workshop will help you to write your memories into scenes for essays or chapters of a full manuscript.

Grab the Reader at Go: Many wonderful manuscripts never get read because the opening pages don't hook the reader. Geared toward those in the early stages of writing fiction and memoir, this five-session workshop will give each participant a chance to submit the beginning of a manuscript and receive feedback.

Short Stories in Translation: Only about three percent of books published in the United States are in translation, yet many of the works that have had the most lasting impact on our culture and literary tradition have come to us from other languages. This course will discuss not only translated stories themselves, but questions surrounding the art of translation and the international literary community.