Hannah Bonner in conv with Louisa Hall - Bree: An Autobiography
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Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate Hannah Bonner will read from her new book Bree: An Autobiography, and will be joined in conversation with Louisa Hall.
University of Iowa Associate Professor and fellow Writers' Workshop graduate Bennett Sims offers the following introduction for Bree:
"In Klute, Bree Daniels became one of the most memorable voices in film noir. In Bree: An Autobiography, Hannah Bonner has become one of the most memorable voices in whatever genre this book has invented. A deft hybrid of film theory, fiction, memoir, and persona poetry, which stylishly combines Bree’s brio with Bonner’s own, the book delivers a virtuosic performance of ventriloquism and insight, projecting the reader deep inside the mind inside the screen. The result is more than a brilliant debut: it’s an instant classic of cinema fiction and creative criticism, to be shelved alongside works like Gabriel Blackwell’s Madeleine E. and Tisa Bryant’s Unexplained Presence" (https://stickingplacebooks.com/books/bree-an-autobiograpy).
Also, Melissa Febos, national bestselling author of Girlhood and The Dry Season, praises Bree as: "An arresting and elegant fictional memoir whose execution is as brilliant as its concept. I've never read anything like it."
Hannah Bonner is a writer, film programmer, and educator. She was a 2023-2024 National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellow and the 2024-2025 CLAS Visiting Writer in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Iowa. Currently, she serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Brink as well as the Film Editor for TriQuarterly, and her writing has been supported by the Breadloaf Environmental Writers' Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, among others. She received The Robert B. Heilman Award for her review of Heather Lewis's Notice in the 2024 issue of The Sewanee Review. She is the author of Another Woman (EastOver Press 2024) and Bree: An Autobiography (Sticking Place Books 2026). She lives in Philadelphia.
Louisa Hall's novels include Reproduction, Trinity and Speak. Reproduction (Ecco, 2023), is the story of a woman attempting to write a novel about Mary Shelley, then turning, instead, to write a contemporary Frankenstein. Trinity was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Award and the winner of the Langum Prize for historical fiction; Speak was a Best Book of the Year in NPR, Slate, the Washington Post, and Men's Journal. Her poems have appeared in The New Republic and The Southwest Review, and other journals, and my essays have appeared in the New York Times, LARB, Slate, The MIT Technology Review, and Texas Monthly.
University of Iowa Associate Professor and fellow Writers' Workshop graduate Bennett Sims offers the following introduction for Bree:
"In Klute, Bree Daniels became one of the most memorable voices in film noir. In Bree: An Autobiography, Hannah Bonner has become one of the most memorable voices in whatever genre this book has invented. A deft hybrid of film theory, fiction, memoir, and persona poetry, which stylishly combines Bree’s brio with Bonner’s own, the book delivers a virtuosic performance of ventriloquism and insight, projecting the reader deep inside the mind inside the screen. The result is more than a brilliant debut: it’s an instant classic of cinema fiction and creative criticism, to be shelved alongside works like Gabriel Blackwell’s Madeleine E. and Tisa Bryant’s Unexplained Presence" (https://stickingplacebooks.com/books/bree-an-autobiograpy).
Also, Melissa Febos, national bestselling author of Girlhood and The Dry Season, praises Bree as: "An arresting and elegant fictional memoir whose execution is as brilliant as its concept. I've never read anything like it."
Hannah Bonner is a writer, film programmer, and educator. She was a 2023-2024 National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellow and the 2024-2025 CLAS Visiting Writer in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Iowa. Currently, she serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Brink as well as the Film Editor for TriQuarterly, and her writing has been supported by the Breadloaf Environmental Writers' Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, among others. She received The Robert B. Heilman Award for her review of Heather Lewis's Notice in the 2024 issue of The Sewanee Review. She is the author of Another Woman (EastOver Press 2024) and Bree: An Autobiography (Sticking Place Books 2026). She lives in Philadelphia.
Louisa Hall's novels include Reproduction, Trinity and Speak. Reproduction (Ecco, 2023), is the story of a woman attempting to write a novel about Mary Shelley, then turning, instead, to write a contemporary Frankenstein. Trinity was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Award and the winner of the Langum Prize for historical fiction; Speak was a Best Book of the Year in NPR, Slate, the Washington Post, and Men's Journal. Her poems have appeared in The New Republic and The Southwest Review, and other journals, and my essays have appeared in the New York Times, LARB, Slate, The MIT Technology Review, and Texas Monthly.
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Where is it happening?
15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA, United States, Iowa 52240
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Host or PublisherPrairie Lights
