It Came from Outer Space at Kan-Kan Cinema and Brasserie featuring discussion with Dr. Phil Nichols
DR. PHIL NICHOLS is the editor of the New Ray Bradbury Review and senior consultant to the Ray Bradbury Center. He gained his Ph.D (Liverpool University) with a study of Bradbury’s film work, and has an M.A. in Screenwriting. He has presented at conferences in the US, UK, France, Belgium and Italy; has written many papers, articles and book chapters on Bradbury and other authors; and hosts and produces the popular podcast series Bradbury 100.
Phil’s website at http://www.bradburymedia.co.uk examines all aspects of Bradbury’s life and work. He is a PhD supervisor at the University of Wolverhampton Screen School, and an External Examiner for several other UK universities.
A Night with Charles Johnson & Steven Barnes at Madam Walker Legacy Center
DR. CHARLES JOHNSON, University of Washington (Seattle) professor emeritus and the author of 27 books, is a novelist, philosopher, essayist, literary scholar, short-story writer, cartoonist and illustrator, an author of children’s literature, and a screen-and-teleplay writer.
A MacArthur fellow, Johnson has received a 2002 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature, a 1990 National Book Award for his novel Middle Passage, a 1985 Writers Guild award for his PBS teleplay “Booker,” the 2016 W.E.B. Du Bois Award at the National Black Writers Conference, and many other awards. The Charles Johnson Society at the American Literature Association was founded in 2003. In February 2020, Lifeline Theater in Chicago debuted its play adaptation of Middle Passage.
Dr. Johnson’s most recent publications are The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling; his fourth short story collection, Night Hawks; GRAND: A Grandparent’s Wisdom for a Happy Life; the graphic novel The Eightfold Path, co-written with Steven Barnes and illustrated by Bryan Moss; and All Your Racial Problems Will Soon End: The Cartoons of Charles Johnson.
STEVEN BARNES is the NY Times bestselling author of over thirty novels of science fiction, horror, and suspense. The Image, Endeavor and Cable-Ace Award winning author also writes for television, including The Twilight Zone, Stargate SG-1, Andromeda and an Emmy Award winning episode of The Outer Limits.
He also has taught at UCLA, Seattle University, and lectured at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. With his wife, British Fantasy Award-winning author
Tananarive Due, he has created online courses in Afrofuturism, Black Horror, and
Screenwriting. Steven was born in Los Angeles, California, and except for a decade in the Northwest, and three years in Atlanta, Georgia, has lived in that area all his life. Steve and Tananarive live with their son, Jason.
TANANARIVE DUE (tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo) is an award-winning author who
teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. She is an executive producer on
Shudder’s groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror.
She and her husband/collaborator, Steven Barnes, wrote “A Small Town” for Season 2 of Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone on Paramount Plus, and two segments of Shudder’s anthology film Horror Noire. They also co-wrote their upcoming Black Horror graphic novel The Keeper, illustrated by Marco Finnegan. Due and Barnes co-host a podcast, Lifewriting: Write for Your Life!
A leading voice in Black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies. Her books include Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to Keep, and The Good House. She and her late mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, co-authored Freedom in the Family: A Mother/Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. She and her husband live with their son, Jason.
DR. RONDA C. HENRY is Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies, Public Scholar of African American Studies and Undergraduate Research, past Director of Africana Studies, and Founding Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Undergraduate Researchers of Color and the Olaniyan Scholars Program at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She also directs the Racially Inclusive Classrooms Program and the Racial Healing Project Initiative.
Since 2007, Dr. Henry has worked to help minoritized and underrepresented students feel welcome, supported, and nurtured at IUPUI. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Loyola University Chicago, and published her book, Searching for the New Black Man: Black Masculinity and Women’s Bodies, in 2013. Dr. Henry is the winner of the 2019 IUPUI Chancellor’s Diversity Scholar Award and a 2012 Outstanding Woman Leader Award.
Shelf Indulgence Book Club at Centerpoint Brewing
SARAH LAYDEN is the author of Imagine Your Life Like This, stories; Trip Through Your Wires, a novel; and The Story I Tell Myself About Myself, winner of the Sonder Press Chapbook Competition. She is co-author with Bryan Furuness of The Invisible Art of Literary Editing.
Her recent nonfiction appears in The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Salon, and The Millions. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
A MultiLingual Read Aloud of Poetry and Prose at Indy Reads led by Karen Kovacik and Terri Carney
KAREN KOVACIK is the author of the poetry collections Portable City (forthcoming in 2024), Metropolis Burning, and Beyond the Velvet Curtain. She’s the editor of Scattering the Dark, an anthology of Polish women poets, and the translator of Jacek Dehnel’s collection, a runner-up for the 2019 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.
One of three translators for Krystyna Dąbrowska’s Tideline, she is the recipient of a Fulbright Research Grant to Poland and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in translation. Kovacik is a Professor of English at IUPUI.
DR. TERRI CARNEY has been a Professor at Butler for twenty-five years, and has served as Chair of the Modern Languages, Literatures, & Cultures Department. She currently leads the Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies program and is President of the Butler Chapter for American Association of University Professors.
She is a graduate of Cornell University (1987) with a B.A. in Psychology, followed by her Master’s in Spanish from Binghamton University, and her Ph.D. in Spanish literature from the University of Kansas. In between her master’s and doctorate degrees she spent two years in Brooklyn, NY, where she taught Spanish, English, and ESL in a large New York City public high school.
She is the author of articles and essays on contemporary Spanish fiction and film, classical Hispanic theater, popular culture, service learning, and feminist activism in the academy. Dr. Carney offers a variety of courses at Butler, including Don Quixote, Early Modern Spanish Theater, and Rights and Resistance: Global Women’s Human Rights. Her recent courses include The films of Pedro Almodóvar and Chicas raras in Spanish Literature and Film, both taught at Kan-Kan theater where the public can join in for the Monday film screenings!
Labyrinth at Kan-Kan Cinema and Brasserie featuring panel discussion led by Kelly Kerr
KELLY KERR is an independent filmmaker and the managing partner of Chicago Rot. She has produced a feature, a few music videos, and a pilot for unscripted TV.
She graduated from IUPUI with degrees in Anthropology and English and worked as a journalist early in her career. She is currently with the IUPUI Arts & Humanities Institute and continues to consult other filmmakers and writers.
She has loved David Bowie for over four decades.
Bill Oberst Jr. by Anne deHaas
World Premiere of Bill Oberst, Jr.’s Adversary at District Theatre
BILL OBERST, JR. is an Emmy winner, an Audible narrator, an Amazon brand and a veteran of 200 film and television projects. Bill’s character on CBS-TV’s Criminal Minds is included in CBS.com’s list of The Most Notorious Serial Killers in Criminal Minds History.
His touring solo stage productions include portrayals of Mark Twain, John F. Kennedy and Jesus of Nazareth. His Off-Broadway appearances include Ray Bradbury Live Forever, a portrayal of Ray authorized by the Ray Bradbury Estate, and Ray Bradbury’s Pillar Of Fire. He is the recipient of 35 awards, including an NYC United Solo Award, the inaugural Lon Chaney Award For Outstanding Achievement in Horror Cinema, presented by the Chaney family, and a Daytime Emmy Award.
Bill’s bedtime fiction podcast, Gothic Goodnight, is an Audible podcast pick. Adversary, his new solo stage show, is about Satan. Official Site: https://AdversaryShow.com
