Talks@EHC Writing & Re-writing Home: Evanston in Memoir

Writing & Re-writing Home: Evanston in Memoir

Sunday, April 12, 4:30 PM

Free & Open to all. Scroll down to RSVP

In-person event*
At the Evanston History Center
225 Greenwood Evanston, IL

How do we remember our own past? How do we use language to explore our own relationship to places that are important to us? Join Evanston writers Joanne Jacobson and Ann Hudson for a discussion of how Jacobson’s trilogy of memoirs recall Evanston landmarks like the B&G diner, the Evanshire Pharmacy, and Lee Street Beach: their cheeseburgers and cherry Cokes, perfume samplers and roasted nuts, their textures of sand and sun. And we’ll explore how remembering and writing about Evanston—or any home—evolves and changes over one writer’s lifetime: how “memory” itself is written and re-written.

Part of Home: Evanston, an exploration of what it means to make a home, and feel at home, in Evanston.

About Joanne Jacobson

After nearly fifty years in Iowa, France, Vermont and New York City, and deep into the global pandemic, Joanne Jacobson returned to southeast Evanston—the neighborhood where she grew up. Jacobson has published three memoirs set in Evanston: Hunger Artist: A Suburban Childhood (2007); Every Last Breath: A Memoir of Two Illnesses (2020); and In the Photic Zone (2026). She has taught courses in American literature and culture and in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa, the University of Angers, Middlebury College, and Yeshiva University. Since retiring and returning home in 2021, she has taught courses on writing about the body in the medical humanities programs at Northwestern and University of Illinois-Chicago.

About Ann Hudson

Ann Hudson is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Subtraction Isn’t Always Less (Next Page Press, 2024). She has received residencies from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Midwest Writing Center, and was the finalist for a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg poetry prize. Ann is a senior editor for the poetry journal Rhino and a teaching artist and Director of Education for Hive Center for the Book Arts in Evanston, Illinois.

Partner Event: Writing About Home: A Writing Workshop

Sunday April 19 1-2pm At Hive Center for the Book Arts, 840 Custer Ave., Evanston

How can we use language to find our way back to places we consider “home”? Join Evanston writer Joanne Jacobson to learn about how we can start putting our own stories to paper. All experience levels welcome and encouraged. $5 off the $25 workshop cost for anyone who attends the April 12 event. Use promo code: EHC when registering. Info and register here.

*This in-person event will also be available on Facebook Live for those who cannot attend in person.

Through our community’s generosity, we can offer these free programs! Please consider donating $10 to support our ongoing free public programming.

Please click the blue “Going” button below to RSVP. A confirmation email will be sent to the email you registered with.

If you don’t receive a confirmation email, please email Erin Hughes at ehughes@evanstonhistorycenter.org.