Writers' Workshop alum Stuart Nadler will read from his newest novel, Rooms for Vanishing, which is a "prismatic, mind-bending family epic about the splintering of a Jewish family from Vienna—exploring the weight of exile and how grief twists our sense of the impossible" (stuartnadler.net). Kirkus Reviews describes Rooms for Vanishing as "beautifully written," while Sabrina Orah Mark, author of Happily and Wild Milk, says, "With masterful precision and an eye flecked with mysticism, Nadler gently peels the first layer off the world, loosens the voices that roam underneath, and from a place so far away it might be an afterlife he writes these voices back from oblivion. Nadler is a genius. Rooms for Vanishing is the book of my dreams."

Nadler will be joined in conversation by Eula Biss.

Stuart Nadler is the author of three novels and a short story collection. His most recent novel, The Inseparables, was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus, and was a finalist for the Mark Twain Prize for the American Voice. He is a recipient of the 5 Under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation. He teaches in the MFA program at Bennington College.

Eula Biss is the author of  Having and Being Had, On Immunity, Notes from No Man’s Land , and The Balloonists. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages and has been recognized by a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library. As a 2023 National Fellow at New America, she is at work on a collection of essays about how private property has shaped our world. For the past twenty years, Biss has taught writing in large lecture halls and small community bookstores, at public elementary schools and private universities. She developed a commitment to progressive education at Hampshire College, where she studied creative writing and visual art before earning an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. She currently teaches nonfiction for the Bennington Writing Seminars. She is a founding editor of Essay Press and a member of the Penny Collective. She lives outside of Chicago.

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Readings at Prairie Lights are sponsored by the Writing University.}