Inciting Joy
November 16 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm CST
$40.00
A Conversation with Best Selling Author Ross Gay
About Why Joy is a Practice of Survival
“My hunch is that joy, emerging from our common sorrow—which does not necessarily mean we have the same sorrows, but that we, in common, sorrow—might draw us together. It might depolarize us and de-atomize us enough that we can consider what, in common, we love. And though attending to what we hate in common is too often all the rage (and it happens also to be very big business), noticing what we love in common, and studying that, might help us survive. It’s why I think of joy, which gets us to love, as being a practice of survival.” –Ross Gay, Inciting Joy
In his book Inciting Joy, best selling author Ross Gay makes a strong case for recognizing, honoring, and expanding our capacity for joy—not for the joy of joy—but for joy’s ability to connect us to one another.
Join us for an evening of conversation, stories, and wisdom about the need for more joy in life.
Leave our conversation with Ross:
- With a new perspective on joy and what can incite it.
- Remembering and Blessing some of your sorrows for the capacity for joy they’ve created in your life.
- Inspired to look for, notice, and incite joy in the world around you.
About Ross Gay:
Ross Gay is interested in joy.
Ross Gay wants to understand joy.
Ross Gay is curious about joy.
Ross Gay studies joy.
Something like that.
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EVENT DETAILS:
Thursday Evening, November 16th
7pm to 8:30pm Central
Via Zoom
$40 per person (partial scholarships available)
ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Ross Gay
Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. In addition to his poetry, Ross has released three collections of essays—The Book of Delights was released in 2019 and was a New York Times bestseller; Inciting Joy was released in 2022, and his newest collection, The Book of (More) Delights was released in September of 2023.
ABOUT HIS BOOK:
INCITING JOY
From the publisher: In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prize-winning poet and author Ross Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life’s inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we expand it. In “We Kin” he thinks about the garden (especially around August, when the zucchini and tomatoes come on) as a laboratory of mutual aid; in “Share Your Bucket” he explores skateboarding’s reclamation of public space; he considers the costs of masculinity in “Grief Suite”; and in “Through My Tears I Saw,” he recognizes what was healed in caring for his father as he was dying. In an era when divisive voices take up so much air space, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love? Full of energy, curiosity, and compassion, Inciting Joy is essential reading from one of our most brilliant writers.
