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You might not know the name Tyrus Wong, but you probably know some of the images he created, including scenes from the beloved Disney classic, Bambi. Yet, when he came to this country as a child, Tyrus spent a month alone at Angel Island. How did he go on to have a long and prosperous career drawing animation cels, storyboards, and greeting cards that shaped the American imagination?

This reading and book launch shares the inspiring story of Tyrus Wong’s remarkable 106-year life, from the paintings and fine art prints he made working for Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, to the unique handmade kites he designed and flew on the Santa Monica beach. Showing how Tyrus found American communities that nurtured his artistic talent, author Karen Fang will cover everything from Tyrus Wong’s work as a studio sketch artist for Warner Bros. to the best-selling Christmas cards he designed for Hallmark and other greeting card companies. 

Join us for the launch of Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong, to celebrate a multi-talented Asian American artist and pioneer.

Q&A and discussion will be facilitated by Le Tang, a Lead Story Artist at Pixar Animation Studios.

More information and event registration here. 

You might not know the name Tyrus Wong, but you probably know some of the images he created, including scenes from the beloved Disney classic, Bambi. Yet, when he came to this country as a child, Tyrus spent a month alone at Angel Island. How did he go on to have a long and prosperous career drawing animation cels, storyboards, and greeting cards that shaped the American imagination?

This reading and book launch shares the inspiring story of Tyrus Wong’s remarkable 106-year life, from the paintings and fine art prints he made working for Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, to the unique handmade kites he designed and flew on the Santa Monica beach. Showing how Tyrus found American communities that nurtured his artistic talent, author Karen Fang will cover everything from Tyrus Wong’s work as a studio sketch artist for Warner Bros. to the best-selling Christmas cards he designed for Hallmark and other greeting card companies. 

Join us for the launch of Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong, to celebrate a multi-talented Asian American artist and pioneer.

Q&A and discussion will be facilitated by Le Tang, a Lead Story Artist at Pixar Animation Studios.

More information about the event here: https://oacc.cc/event/backgroundartist/

Join us for a book discussion with Alessandro Giardino, author of The Caravaggio Syndrome! 

Headstrong art historian Leyla is expecting a baby with feckless computer technician Pablo. There’s only one problem: she can’t stand him. And one more problem: her student Michael wants Pablo for himself. But when the writings by utopian philosopher Tommaso Campanella unlocks the secret of a painting and a mystical gateway to 17th century Naples, Leyla and Michael embark on a voyage of self-discovery in search of a new life.

Date: Tuesday, October 15 
Time: 6:00PM - 7:00PM 
Location: 164 King Street, Charleston, SC 29401Admission Costs: $10.00 for CLS Members | $15.00 for General Members 

To purchase tickets for the event, please go to this link!

Join us for a Book Talk with Melissa Ludtke, author of Locker Room Talk: A Woman’s Struggle to Get Inside!

Melissa Ludtke offers a compelling account of her courtroom quest to do what her male sportswriter colleagues took for granted: to talk with players in Major League Baseball’s locker rooms. She reveals how, as a 26-year-old woman, she took MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to federal court—and won.

Date: Tuesday, October 15
Time: 6:30-7:30PM
Location: New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024

For more information and to register, please go to this link!

Lynn Povich, the author of “The Good Girls Revolt,” and I talk about the legal fights waged by women journalists in the 1970s against the gender discrimination they experienced in their jobs. At magazines, newspapers and broadcast stations, women were put in clerical rather than editorial jobs, while men with their same education and skill sets were hired as writers or producers. Women were paid and promoted less than men, too. In this context, we’ll talk about Ludtke v. Kuhn, my 1978 legal case that won equal access for women sportswriters.

More information about the event here: https://www.melissaludtke.com/events-1/2024/10/15/play-ball-women-sports-and-journalism

Join us for a book launch with Professor Karoline Krasuska, author of Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction!

How does being Soviet-born inflect one’s grasp of Jewishness in North America? Reading across the many English-language works by Soviet-born writers, Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction demonstrates how these diasporic authors recast such pivotal literary themes as Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, communism, gender and intimacy, and migrant solidarities. 

Date: Thursday, October 17, 2024
Time: 5 PM
Location: American Studies Center, ul. Dobra 55, Room 2.118, 00-312 Warszawa, Poland 

For more information, click on this link!

Join the Chinese American Museum on Thursday, October 17th at 6:30 pm for the latest installment of Beyond the Page, where we celebrate the launch of Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong by scholar and author Karen Fang. Fang’s debut biography details the inspiring story of Tyrus Wong’s remarkable 106-year life, starting with his work as a studio sketch artist at Warner Bros. to the creative masterpieces he produced while working at Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration and beyond. 

Explore the life of Tyrus Wong and the iconic images he created during his prosperous career in conversation with author Karen Fang. Joining the conversation with Fang is former Los Angeles Times editor, Elaine Woo. RSVP now at camla.org/karenfang. 

Attendees can purchase a signed copy of Background Artist at the event. 

About the Author:

Karen Fang is a film scholar and visual culture critic who writes and speaks for museums and film festivals around the world. Known for previous books about Hong Kong cinema and nineteenth-century British interest in exotic objects, Karen often writes about the intersection of eastern and western aesthetics. Her work has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, Hyperallergic, Nikkei Asia, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is also a prominent contributor to The Engines of Our Ingenuity, a long-running, widely distributed public radio series about science and innovation, where her episodes always focus on the visual arts. An artist herself, Karen’s favorite media is watercolor and pen and ink.  

 About the Moderator:

Elaine Woo is a freelance writer and editor and a former Los Angeles Times reporter and editor. A Los Angeles native, Elaine has written for her hometown paper since 1983, covering public education before joining “the dead beat”—news obituaries—where she produced artful pieces on notable figures including Norman Mailer, Julia Child, Rosa Parks, and Tyrus Wong.   

**CAM’s Beyond the Page series features conversations with AAPI authors and focuses on amplifying Asian American voices and their diverse experiences.  

More information about the event here: https://camla.org/upcoming-events/

Piscataway Library is pleased to have Dr. Katie Singer discuss her book, Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark, released August 2024. Dr. Singer is a scholar, writer, and activist. The Great Migration, as it was later dubbed, describes the movement of more than 6 million Blacks from the southern United States to the North, Midwest, and Western regions of the United States between 1910 and 1980s (note: these dates are expanded to encompass both Migrations) to find better jobs, better working conditions and to flee racist policies under the Jim Crow South.

This event accompanies the traveling exhibit World on the Move: 250,000 Years of Human Migration.

World on the Move: 250,000 Years of Human Migration was developed by the American Anthropological Association, together with the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and Smithsonian Exhibits. It is administered by the American Library Association’s Public Programs Office.

More information about the traveling exhibition can be found at understandingmigration.org.

More information about the event here: https://piscataway.librarycalendar.com/event/hold-alien-soil-program-wotm-21213

Join us for a book discussion with Katie Singer, author of Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark! 

Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark looks at Newark, New Jersey’s once proposed Krueger-Scott African-American Cultural Center and the oral history collection generated to be a part of the Center. The narrators in this oral history collection recount their lives in Newark, painting pictures of everyday urbanity while also providing insight into 20th century Black urban life more generally. 


Date: Thursday, October 24 
Time: 6-8PM 
Location: Dana Room, Dana Library, 185 University Ave, Newark, NJ 07102

For more information and to register, please click on this link!