A headshot of Jemele Hill.

TomorrowTalks with Jemele Hill: Uphill


Join ASU’s TomorrowTalks with Jemele Hill on Thursday, January 26th, at 6pm AZ time. TomorrowTalks is a student-engagement initiative meant to put students in conversation with authors, who explain how they use their writing to address society’s most pressing issues. It’s led by the Division of Humanities at ASU and hosted by ASU’s Department of English in partnership with Macmillan Publishers.

This event takes place over Zoom and is free, although registration is required. Hill will be discussing her memoir Uphill, published by Henry Holt and Co. One of Oprah Daily’s Best Fall Nonfiction Books of 2022, Uphill is a bold, unflinching look at Hill’s life and her battle to overcome intergenerational trauma. Hill forges a new path with truth and confidence, rising to find her voice and speak to the world.

Jemele Hill’s commitment to truth telling is unparalleled. Whether she is exposing white supremacy or being radically transparent about her own history, Jemele’s resolve remains steadfast. She makes you want to lean in and listen, but more importantly, she encourages us all to use our voices to tell necessary, hard truths.

Gabrielle Union, New York Times bestselling author of We’re Going to Need More Wine and You Got Anything Stronger?

Jemele Hill is currently a contributor for the Atlantic, where she writes about the intersection of culture, politics, race, and sports. She was an Emmy-Award winning cohost of ESPN and was 2018 NABJ Journalist of the Year.

Hill is relentless but fair, and she is equally comfortable parsing out instances of institutional racism and admitting to her own mistakes. She balances humor, vulnerability, and passion, creating a text that is both exciting and emotionally satisfying.

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To learn more about TomorrowTalks and register for the event, go here.

A photo of Percival Everett.

TomorrowTalks with Percival Everett: The Trees


Join ASU’s TomorrowTalks with Percival Everett, November 3rd at 6pm AZ time. TomorrowTalks is a student-engagement initiative meant to put students in conversation with authors who explain how they use their writing to address society’s most pressing issues. It’s led by the Division of Humanities at ASU and hosted by ASU’s Department of English in partnership with Macmillan Publishers.

This event takes place over Zoom and is free, although registration is required. Everett will be discussing his book The Trees, published by Graywolf Press. Winner of the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, this novel deals with a series of devastating and puzzling murders in Money, Mississippi. As detectives attempt to figure out what’s going on, they discover that similar murders are taking place all over the country. In the process, they must reckon with America’s brutal history of racism and police violence.

Everett has mastered the movement between unspeakable terror and knockout comedy.

Amy Rowland, The New York Times Book Review

Percival Everett has written over twenty novels and is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

“The Trees” is a wild book: a gory pulp revenge fantasy and a detective narrative. . . . [It] is just as blood-soaked and just as hilarious as Inglourious Basterds or Django Unchained, but it comes with more authentic historical weight for being set in a dreamlike counterpresent.

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To learn more about TomorrowTalks and register for the event, go here.

Photo of Jocelyn Nicole Johnson.

TomorrowTalks with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson: My Monticello

Join ASU’s TomorrowTalks with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, October 13th at 7pm AZ time. TomorrowTalks is a student-engagement initiative meant to put students in conversation with authors who explain how they use their writing to address society’s most pressing issues. It’s led by the Division of Humanities at ASU and hosted by ASU’s Department of English in partnership with Macmillan Publishers.

This event takes place over Zoom and is free, although registration is required. Johnson will be discussing her book My Monticellopublished by Henry Holt and Company and winner of the Weatherford Award, the Balcones Fiction Prize, and the Lillian Smith Award. Set in the near future, her stories feature Da’Naishaa Black descendent of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemingsa university professor studying his son in secret, and a single mother grasping to purchase her first home. Johnson reckons with America’s past and present in this thrilling debut.

A badass debut by any measure—nimble, knowing, and electrifying.

Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Nickel Boys and Harlem Shuffle

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s work has appeared in Guernica, The Guardian, Kweli Journal, and elsewhere. To learn more about her, visit her website.

…’My Monticello’ is, quite simply, an extraordinary debut from a gifted writer with an unflinching view of history and what may come of it.

The Washington Post

To learn more about TomorrowTalks and register for the event, go here.

A photo of Jonathan Franzen.

TomorrowTalks with Jonathon Franzen: Crossroads


Join ASU’s TomorrowTalks with Jonathan Franzen Wednesday, October 5th at 6pm AZ time. TomorrowTalks is a student-engagement initiative meant to put students in conversation with authors who explain how they use their writing to address society’s most pressing issues. It’s led by the Division of Humanities at ASU and hosted by ASU’s Department of English in partnership with Macmillan Publishers.

This event takes place over Zoom and is free, although registration is required. Franzen will be discussing his book Crossroads, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. His book is set in December of 1971, and it examines a Midwestern family in the midst of a moral crisis. With careful attention to each of the family members, he interweaves their perspectives into a tale of suspense and complexity.

Thank God for Jonathan Franzen . . . With its dazzling style and tireless attention to the machinations of a single family, Crossroads is distinctly Franzen-esque, but it represents a marked evolution . . . It’s an electrifying examination of the irreducible complexities of an ethical life. With his ever-parsing style and his relentless calculation of the fractals of consciousness, Franzen makes a good claim to being the 21st century’s Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Jonathan Franzen has written six novels. He has won a variety of awards: the National Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Award, the Heartland Prize, and others. Visit his website to read more about him.

To learn more about TomorrowTalks and register for the event, go here.