EVENT OVERVIEW: Maggie Smith will be In Conversation with Traci Brimhall, 2023 to 2026 Poet Laureate for Kansas, about Maggie's New Hardcover You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir on Sunday, April 23, 2023, at 2:00 PM.
ABOUT THE NEW BOOK: “[Smith]...reminds you that you can...survive deep loss, sink into life’s deep beauty, and constantly, constantly make yourself new.” ~ Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times BestsellingAauthor
Maggie Smith, the Bestselling Poet and Author of the “powerful” (People) and “luminous” (Newsweek) Keep Moving offers a lush and heartrending memoir exploring coming of age in your middle age.
“Life, like a poem, is a series of choices.”
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but the circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. With a poet’s attention to language and an innovative approach to the genre, Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Maggie Smith is the Award-Winning Author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir, Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, Lamp of the Body, and the National Bestsellers: Goldenrod, and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received several Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Best American Poetry, and more. You can follow her on Social Media @MaggieSmithPoet
EVENT DATE & TIME: Sunday, April 23, 2023, at 2:00 PM
EVENT LOCATION: A Rainy Day Books Author & Book Event at Unity Temple on The Plaza, Charles Fillmore Chapel, 707 W 47th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64112. Complimentary Parking is available in the Parking Garage immediately adjacent to Unity Temple.
ADMISSION PACKAGE: $28.00 plus Kansas Sales Tax includes 1 Hardcover of You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir, 1 Admission Reservation, and 1 Guest Admission Reservation (if needed). It's your choice, for the same Price.
WALK IN ADMISSION PACKAGES will be available at the door of this event beginning at 1:30 PM on Sunday April 23, 2023.
EVENT FORMAT: Maggie Smith will be In Conversation with Traci Brimhall, 2023 to 2026 Poet Laureate for Kansas, about Maggie's New Hardcover You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir. The Conversation & Presentation will last approximately 1 Hour. A Booksigning will follow the Program.
DISCLAIMER: All Author Event Sales are final and non-refundable. Kansas Sales Tax is charged on all domestic orders, regardless of destination. Unless otherwise indicated, Authors will only sign Books purchased from Rainy Day Books accompanied by a Receipt. Additional signed Books are available for purchase at our Author Event.
1 Author Autographed Hardcover of You Could Make This Place Beautiful