Mid-Sentence | Riddance: Shelley Jackson with Maria Dahvana Headley
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Ghosts, stuttering, and learning the value of your voice.
In her first novel in twelve years, Shelley Jackson travels to the border separating life and death and asks us to listen.
When eleven-year old Jane Grandison receives an invitation to join the Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children, she thinks she has finally found a safe place where she can learn to control her stutter. However, rather than rid the children of their speech impediments, Headmistress Sybil Jones, a dedicated pioneer of the field of necrophysics, considers their stutters “gifts” that can be used as a channel to access the other side of reality: the land of the dead.
Riddance alternates between a detailed account of Jane’s life at the Vocational School and the transcript of the Headmistress’ final transmission from beyond, with readers following a journey of both the living and the dead. Joined by Maria Dahvana Headley, author of the novel The Mere Wife, Jackson will discuss the power of experimental writing and reinventing the traditional ghost story.
Mid-Sentence presents a series of conversations with groundbreaking literary voices. Indie authors and cult favorites explore the intersections between literature and lived experience.
ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org.