Nicole Treska with Tracy O'Neill: Wonderland

A necessary narrative that extends compassion and dignity to those our society often withholds it from.
After the death of her paternal aunt, Nicole returns to the town that gave her family its street cred but has taken away everything else. She was born to a family of gangsters in the Boston area whose affiliation with the Winter Hill Gang afforded them an amount of protection, money, and respect.
It’s in Boston that she reunites with her father and is reminded of why she left in the first place, but also why she returned. Though Nicole sees it as her responsibility to take care of those around her, as a writer, adjunct professor, and waitress, who rents out the second bedroom of her Harlem apartment on Airbnb to make ends meet, she can barely take care of herself.
If achieving the American Dream means alienating oneself from their community, Wonderland: A Tale of Hustling Hard and Breaking Even reminds us why the reality of “escaping poverty“ is more complex than the decisions of individuals, but also depends on the investment we make in our people to thrive together.

Nicole Treska is the author of the debut memoir Wonderland. Her short fiction has appeared in New York Tyrant magazine, Epiphany literary journal, and Egress: New Openings in Literary Art. Her interviews and reviews are up at Electric Literature, Guernica, The Millions, BOMB, The Rumpus, and then some. She lives in Harlem with her husband, James, and their three-legged dog, Nadine.

Moderator Tracy O'Neill is the author of The Hopeful, one of Electric Literature's Best Novels of 2015, and Quotients, a New York Times New & Noteworthy Book, TOR Editor's Choice, & Literary Hub Favorite Book of 2020. Her most recent book is the memoir Woman of Interest. In 2015, she was named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. In 2012, she was awarded the Center for Fiction's Emerging Writers Fellowship. Her writing has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, the New Yorker, LitHub, BOMB, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Believer, The Literarian, The Austin Chronicle, New World Writing, The Baffler, Narrative, 4Columns, Scoundrel Time, Guernica, Bookforum, Electric Literature, Grantland, Vice, The Guardian, VQR, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Catapult. She holds an MFA from the City College of New York; and an MA, an MPhil, and a PhD from Columbia University. She teaches at Vassar College.

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