FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Julia Whitehead [email protected] (317) 652-1954 or Ruth Weiner [email protected] (914) 309-8570
Live Virtual Unceremonious Graduation Party, Vonnegut Style!
Vonnegut style grad parties will take place each Tuesday in May on Zoom. Tickets are available on Eventbrite.
May 4, 2020. In celebration of the graduating class of 2020, the Kurt Vonnegut Museum & Library and Seven Stories Press will co-host a series of live graduation events on Tuesdays in May. Each event will feature a roundtable reading of one of the many commencement speeches Kurt Vonnegut delivered during his lifetime that are newly collected in the paperback edition of If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?, edited by Dan Wakefield.
The party kicks off on May 5th at 7:00 pm with author Jacqueline Woodson, actor Tony Shalhoub, and comedian Lewis Black along with graduating high school senior Ricco Schuster reading from the commencement address, “The Terrible Disease of Loneliness Can Be Cured!” with poet and performance artist Manon Voice and musicians Charlie Ballantine and Amanda Gardier also performing. Black will read the names of attendees who are graduating seniors during the program.
May 5th is also #GivingTuesdayNow, a new day of global giving and unity in response to COVID-19, and tickets and other donations will go toward supporting the KVML. A portion of the proceeds from sales of If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? during the event will also go to the Vonnegut Library.
The Tuesday, May 12th event will feature Russell Banks, David Brancaccio, and the book’s editor, Dan Wakefield, among others. Tuesday, May 19th will feature Paul Auster and Kurt’s son Mark Vonnegut with more to come. Visit vonnegutlibrary.org or sevenstories.com for updated information about the forthcoming graduation events.
Additionally Ed Battista, owner of Bluebeard restaurant in Indianapolis, IN, has created a signature cocktail and mocktail recipe for these special events.
“We can make the Class of 2020 graduation an affair to remember after all! These talented individuals and our audience will come together in a spirit of national unity as well as support for the Vonnegut Library. As the book title says: ‘If this isn’t nice, what is?'” said KVML founder and CEO Julia
Whitehead. Seven Stories Press publisher, and Kurt Vonnegut’s friend and last editor, Dan Simon adds, “Kurt would have been ecstatic to be celebrating in this way with graduating high school and college students—he himself never graduated, which is part of what made his self-effacing and hilarious speeches so popular.”
Tickets are $15 per household and free for students. To purchase tickets, please visit the Eventbrite page.
For further information, to make a donation, or to order a copy of If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?, please contact Julia Whitehead at (317) 652-1954 email [email protected] or Ruth Weiner at 914-309-8570, [email protected]
vonnegutlibrary.org | sevenstories.com
@vonnegutlibrary @7StoriesPress
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