August 2, 2025 - Out of Place in America: Marginalized Identities

Описание: Out of Place in America: Marginalized Identities with Nicholas Boggs, Martha Jones, Joseph Lee and Danzy Senna and moderated by Michele Norris.

Drawing on works of memoir, fiction, and biography, these remarkable authors will lead us in an exploration of how questions of identity and belonging defy, challenge and define the American experience.

Nicholas Boggs is the author of Baldwin: A Love Story, the first major biography of the iconic figure in over three decades. A three-time MacDowell Fellow, Boggs is the recipient of multiple grants and fellowships, including most recently the 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and is the 2025 John Hope Franklin Fellow.

Martha S. Jones is an historian and author of The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir, a deeply personal exploration of identity, lineage, and race in America. She is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. A prizewinning author of Vanguard and three other books, Jones is a leading voice on race, law, and citizenship.

Joseph Lee is an award-winning Aquinnah Wampanoag journalist and author of Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity, which weaves personal narrative with investigative reporting to explore what it means to be Native today. He is a former Senior Indigenous Affairs Fellow at Grist and Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. He teaches creative writing and holds an MFA from Columbia.


Danzy Senna is a bestselling author known for her keen perceptiveness, biting humor, and satirical style. She has written six books, including Caucasia and New People. Her most recent work, Colored Television, continues to push boundaries, blending personal and societal narratives to address issues of race and representation. Senna teaches writing at the University of Southern California.

Our moderator Michele Norris is a senior contributing editor for MSNBC and a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Directors. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity. She is the host of the podcast, Your Mama’s Kitchen and a former columnist for The Washington Post Opinion Section. Her voice will be familiar to followers of public radio, where from 2002 to 2012 she was a host of NPR’s afternoon magazine show, All Things Considered. She serves on the MV Book Festival Advisory Board.