This third program in our AI series focused on the critical issue of inherent biases in AI technologies, especially as they are deployed in law enforcement, healthcare, government, and education. We took a look at how these biases manifest and their profound implications.

From generating new forms of artistic expression to transforming industry practices, artificial intelligence is redefining the boundaries of creativity. This event brought together creatives from diverse backgrounds and industry experts to discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by AI in the performing and fine arts.…

Tommy Orange, the Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There, returns to ALOUD with one of TIME Magazine’s most anticipated books of 2024, Wandering Stars, which traces the legacies of the Colorado Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family. Orange’s new…

Join us for the first of a special ALOUD series on AI where we take a compelling look into the interaction between young people and AI systems, exploring subconscious perceptions and the significant effects of AI on youth mental health and development.ALOUD on Ideas is an ongoing series that will take a thematic look at subjects that are particular…

Leslie Jamison has become one of our most beloved contemporary voices, a scribe of the real, the true, and the complex. The New York Times best-selling author of The Recovering and The Empathy Exams joins us in a program exclusive to ALOUD about her new memoir, Splinters, the riveting story of rebuilding a life after the end of a marriage — an expl…

The award-winning, beloved author of Pure Colour Sheila Heti returns to ALOUD with her new thrilling confessional Alphabetical Diaries. Over a 10-year period, Heti kept a record of her thoughts, then arranged the sentences from A to Z. Known for her experimental literary works —passionate and reflective, joyful and despairing—Heti masterfully struc…

Join us for a conversation with one of our country’s most prominent rabbis, Rabbi Sharon Brous of IKAR, discussing her new book, The Amen Effect, which explores what it will take, in a time of loneliness and isolation, social rupture and alienation, to rebuild our society. Rabbi Brous was in conversation with celebrated Los Angeles-based activist a…

In 2019, Cristina Rivera Garza traveled from her home in Texas to Mexico City in search of an old unresolved criminal file. "My name is Cristina Rivera Garza," she wrote in her request to the attorney general, "and I am writing to you as a relative of Liliana Rivera, who was murdered on July 16, 1990." Knowing there is only a slim chance of recover…

ALOUD welcomes two-time Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize–winner Tracy K. Smith with her remarkable book To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul. In 2020, heartsick from consistent assaults on Black life, Tracy K. Smith found herself soul-searching and digging into the historical archive for help navigating the "din o…

Renowned art conservator Rosa Lowinger reveals in her beautiful memoir Dwell Time a journey of her difficult childhood in Miami growing up among people whose losses in the Cuban revolution, and earlier by the decimation of family in the Holocaust, clouded all family life. Through Lowinger’s relentless clear-eyed efforts to be the best practitioner …

Award-winning journalist Santi Elijah Holley brings us a long overdue look at the Shakur family, who, for over fifty years, have inspired generations of activists, scholars, and music fans. An Amerikan Family is the history of the fight for Black liberation in the United States, as experienced by the Shakurs. From Assata Shakur, the popular author …

From former White House aide to President Obama and Harvard graduate Alejandra Campoverdi comes a riveting, unflinching memoir on navigating social mobility as a first gen Latina. She offers a broad examination of the unacknowledged emotional tolls of being a trailblazer. Join us as we follow Campoverdi’s journey from being a child of welfare to be…

In her bestselling books, celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein documents the effects of branding, austerity, and climate profiteering on our societies and our souls. Using her own story of an antithetical doppelganger, she looks at what she refers to as the "Mirror World" of our destabilized present, full of doubles and confusion…

Join Tess Gunty to discuss her debut novel The Rabbit Hutch, the winner of this year’s National Book Award. In her darkly funny and remarkable novel, we’re introduced to a string of overlapping characters and plots mostly centered around La Lapinière, otherwise known as "The Rabbit Hutch," a run-down apartment building in Vacca Vale, Indiana. The …

"'Stories about empire,' Tobar writes, 'move us because they're echoes of the memories that reside deep in our collective consciousness.' Latinos, after all, are people' living with the hurt caused by war and politics, conquest and surrender, revolution and dictatorship.'" —The New York Times "Latino" is the most broadly defined major race in the U…

“This surprising look at the nature of primates has a lot to say about what it means to be human.”―Publishers WeeklyRenowned primatologist and bestselling author Frans de Waal has spent thousands of hours observing apes and monkeys both in the wild and in captivity. In his new book (now out in paperback), Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Pri…

Around the world, writers and journalists have been increasingly targeted for their work by waves of online harassment. From the missives of QAnon, to the rise of hate speech on Twitter, and the use of doxxing to weaponize an adversary’s personal information, our political context is building a perfect storm of harassment with ever-shifting targets…

David Ambroz, best-selling author of A Place Called Home, shares his story of survival on the streets of New York City and later through violence in foster care, always with the goal of moving people from empathy to action. He lays out his ideas, informed through lived experience and policy expertise, to fix foster care, address homelessness, and b…

In 2016, The Hidden Life of Trees began the conversation that trees can communicate with each other. Peter Wohlleben’s bestselling book changed the way we looked at ourselves and our environment. Now, after eight years, he follows up his groundbreaking work with The Power of Trees: How Ancient Forests Can Save Us, if We Let Them. This time, Wohlleb…

Bestselling author Cheryl Strayed takes the ALOUD stage to discuss the transformation of her popular book, Tiny Beautiful Things, to the television screen with show creator and executive producer Liz Tigelaar. Tiny Beautiful Things tells the story of Dear Sugar, a respected advice columnist whose own life is falling apart. Told in multiple timeline…

Award-winning and bestselling author Emily St. John Mandel comes to the ALOUD stage to discuss her latest novel, Sea of Tranquility, with National Book Award Winner Charles Yu (Interior Chinatown). A genre-bending work of speculative fiction exploring the nature of time and reality through the eyes of characters living across a span of 500 years. S…

Join international bestselling author and poet Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai in conversation with a host of The Vietnamese podcast Kenneth Nguyen to discuss her second novel written in English, Dust Child. Described by Viet Thanh Nguyen as “powerful and deeply empathetic… A heartbreaking tale of lost ideals, human devotion, and hard-won redemption,” Dust Chi…

"I wrote this book in the hopes of making grief less frightening, mysterious, and lonely for those of us who suddenly find ourselves on this difficult journey."—Colin CampbellWhen film and theater writer/director Colin Campbell’s two teenage children were killed by a drunk driver, Campbell was thrown headlong into a grief so deep he felt he might l…

Celebrated Irish writer Colm Tóibín (Brooklyn, The Master) returns with a new book of scintillating essays, A Guest at the Feast. This collection blends both the personal with the provocative giving us an intimate look at Tóibín’s experiences and his growing understanding of Catholicism. Again we are amazed by his ability to move with such grace be…

This program features personal stories by various individuals who made a connection with P-22 and understand the immediate need for wildlife protection, along with guests who answered an open mic call to share their knowledge and admiration for P-22. The evening features California Regional Executive Director for the National Wildlife Federation’s …