A Talk by Children's Author, Amy Alznauer

March 18, 2021 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm

Join us for a talk by children's author, Amy Alznauer on March 18 from 4:00-5:30 pm. Register at: https://pitt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcsf--qrzwiGNDZ3D0SZ63C9UrtSbFr1yE9

Amy Alznauer is the award-winning author of several biographical children's books, including The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity, The Strange Birds of Flannery O'Connor, and Flying Paintings: The Zhou Brothers. Her talk is called "Metaphor, Archives, and the Fearsome Practice of Picture Book Biography." A description is as follows:

“Do you work with fear and trembling?” William Blake once asked an apprentice. When the response was “yes,” Blake said, “You’ll do.” Picture book biographies make a fearsome demand: to encapsulate an entire life into a slim book and to do it in a way that opens up to illustration, does justice to a life and person, and speaks to children. This task invites all sorts of fascinating questions. How do we balance the demands of story against the demands of history (or against the demands of “fact”)? How does the interplay with image shift this balance? What techniques might we use to bring about an encounter with a full person, with a whole life? Drawing on the work of Toni Morrison, her own thoughts on archival materials and metaphor, and a look inside her own books and process, Amy Alznauer will explore the whole fear-and-trembling-inducing practice of writing picture book biographies.