What My Father and I Don’t Talk About: Michele Filgate
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Lord Baltimore Hotel
Baltimore Theatre – Mezzanine
PARKING
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In 2019, when Michele Filgate introduced the world to her book What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About, it arrived “the rarest of successes: a modern-day cult classic” gone viral as if the lid was off the pot. We could talk openly about our mothers … during the pandemic when familial loss became part of the author’s storm. In 2025, Michele returns as editor with sixteen notable writers who break the silence on complicated relationships they have with their fathers in this second act, What My Father and I Don’t Talk About. “This stunning collection gathers so many kinds of fathers; fathers selling cars, cutting hair, peeling apples, salting slugs, wearing dresses, arriving too late, fathers who were violent in their primes, cowed by end of life,” says Marie-Helene Bertino, author of Beautyland. Michele’s work has appeared in Longreads, Poets & Writers, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Paris Review Daily, Tin House, Gulf Coast, Oprah Daily, and many other publications. Maryland’s own Susan Muaddi Darraj, an award-winning writer of books for adults and children, leads the conversation as a contributor to this collection of essays. Her novel Behind You is the Sea received praise from The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Ms Magazine, and it was named a Best Book of 2024 by The New Yorker and The Washington Post, and most recently, a 2025 Pen-Faulkner Award finalist. ‘The intertwined stories of Palestinian immigrants in Baltimore are thoughtfully rendered in this tapestry-like debut that grapples with questions of class, culture, generational strife and home.’ — New York Times
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Michele Filgate is the editor of a critically acclaimed anthology based on her Longreads essay, What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About, published by Simon & Schuster, and the forthcoming anthology What My Father and I Don’t Talk About. Michele earned her MFA from New York University, where she was the recipient of the Stein Fellowship. Her work has appeared in Longreads, Joyland, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Refinery29, Slice, The Paris Review Daily, Tin House, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Salon, Interview Magazine, Buzzfeed, The Barnes & Noble Review, Poets & Writers, CNN.com, Time Out New York, People, The Daily Beast, O, The Oprah Magazine, Men’s Journal, Vulture, and other publications. She teaches or has taught creative writing at Columbia, NYU, The New School, The Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop, Catapult, The Shipman Agency, and Stanford Continuing Studies and is the founder of the Red Ink series. In 2016, Brooklyn Magazine named her one of “The 100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture.” She’s a former board member of the National Book Critics Circle and a former contributing editor at Literary Hub.
www.michelefilgate.com
X: @readandbreathe
Instagram: @readandbreathe
Susan Muaddi Darraj is an award-winning writer of books for adults and children. She won an American Book Award, two Arab American Book Awards, and a Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artists Award. In 2018, she was named a USA Artists Ford Fellow. Her books include her linked short story collection, A Curious Land, as well as the Farah Rocks children’s book series. She lives in Baltimore, where she teaches creative writing at Harford Community College and the Johns Hopkins University. Her new novel, Behind You is the Sea, was published in January 2024 by HarperVia. It received praise from The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Ms Magazine, and it was named a Best Book of 2024 by The New Yorker and The Washington Post. ‘This gorgeous debut, an intergenerational novel-in-stories following three Palestinian-American families in Baltimore, navigates a tricky balance beam: It’s a zoomed-in family drama that simultaneously captures wide-lens truths about cultural differences; the weight of history; and the myriad manifestations of love.’ — Elle
www.SusanMDBooks.com
X: @SusanDarraj
Instagram: @SusanDarraj
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CityLit Project in partnership with Lord Baltimore Hotel and Red Emma’s present CityLit Festival: Our Stories Give Light To Our Future. This celebration of the arts showcases a bevy of leading poets and writers on April 5, 2025. We’re talking fiction, nonfiction, poetry galore, and ways to up the ante on your craft.
Download the CityLit Festival: Our Stories Give Light To Our Future flyer.