Celebrating ART ABOVE EVERYTHING by Stephanie Elizondo Griest

Bel Canto Books is delighted to celebrate ART ABOVE EVERYTHING: ONE WOMAN'S GLOBAL EXPLORATION OF THE JOYS AND TORMENTS OF A CREATIVE LIFE by Stephanie Elizondo Griest.

Kindly RSVP so we can plan accordingly. Please stay home if you feel sick.

This event will be held indoors at KUBO LB (3976 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach CA).

EVENT SCHEDULE

3:45pm - Event check-in begins

4:00pm - Welcome & event start

4:15-5:00pm - Author reading, conversation, and Q&A

5:00pm-6:00pm - Book signing & shopping time

6:00pm - Event ends

ABOUT THE BOOK

Meet queer, BIPOC, and women artists around the world as they discuss the gifts, costs, and redemptive power of pursuing a creative life
Is the all-encompassing quest to become a self-sustaining artist worth the sacrifices it often requires? Throughout her 20s and 30s, Stephanie Elizondo Griest could not help worrying if constantly prioritizing her writing over everything else—from postponing children to living nomadically to save on rent—was leading her to fulfillment or regret. After a break-up and serious health crisis in her early 40s, she decided to turn to other women artists for their perspectives on that perennial question: is art enough?
Art Above Everything introduces us to legendary writers, visual artists, dancers, and musicians across the globe, who talk intimately about their art, what it requires, what it gifts them, and what it costs them. Opening in a classical Indian dance village, Elizondo Griest goes on to meet 100+ artists in Rwanda, Romania, Qatar, Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, Cuba, and the United States. She discovers artists from Rwandan playwright Hope Azeda, who navigated ethnic tensions as she attempted to bring about reconciliation through theater in the aftermath of genocide; to Romanian painter Florica Prevenda, who got assigned to a provincial factory during Ceaușescu’s dictatorship but never relinquished her brushes.
Art is inheritance, dissent, devotion, revenge, celebration, and more. Yet though each artist’s relationship to their craft is different, their need to create in the face of economic hardship, misogyny, sexual violence, and family ostracization is wholly akin.
Bold and inspiring, Art Above Everything never pretends that the artist’s path is easy—but it illuminates the infinite ways we can wield creativity as a vitalizing force.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephanie Elizondo Griest is a globetrotting author from South Texas. Her 6 books include: Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana; Mexican Enough; and All the Agents and Saints: Dispatches from the US Borderlands. She has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, The Believer, BBC, VQR, and Oxford American. Her work has won a Margolis Award for Social Justice Reporting, an International Latino Book Award, a PEN Southwest Book Award, and a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Gold Prize. She currently serves as a professor of creative nonfiction at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

ABOUT BEL CANTO BOOKS

Founded by Jhoanna Belfer, a Filipina-American poet and former hospitality executive, Bel Canto Books offers a curated selection of fiction, nonfiction and children's books, organized around a theme of the month, in particular celebrating books by women and people of color. Learn more at belcantobooks.net.

ABOUT KUBO LB

KUBO LB is a creative community space for Filipinx, BIPOC, LGBTQ, and Women led small businesses. KUBO LB is a space to support and educate small businesses through retail, business workshops and more. Learn more at kubolb.com.

ART ABOVE EVERYTHING: ONE WOMAN'S GLOBAL EXPLORATION OF THE JOYS AND TORMENTS OF A CREATIVE LIFE by Stephanie Elizondo Griest

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