My Calendar

Riverside Public Library’s Humanity Series is back! Join Inlandia Institute in partnership with Riverside Public Library for a four-part spin around the Inland Empire with local writers Larry Burns, Nikia Chaney, Rebecca K. O’Connor, Teresa Rhyne, Susan Straight, Douglas McCulloh, Isabel Quintero, and Casandra Lopez.

This series is free and open to the public, but registration is required: https://tinyurl.com/HumanitiesHour202

“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.” ― Joan Didion

The scheduled speakers will offer insights, observations, and tools for writing about the location we call home – Inland Southern California.

January 5: Larry Burns and Nikia Chaney

January 19: Rebecca K. O’Connor and Teresa J. Rhyne

February 2: Susan Straight and Douglas McCulloh

February 16: Isabel Quintero and Casandra Lopez

Susan Straight was born in Riverside, California, where she still lives with her family. Her memoir, In the Country of Women (Catapult Books, 2020) was a national bestseller. It was a Best Book of the Year by NPR and CodeSwitch, longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, and a Finalist for the Clara Johnson Prize for Women’s Literature. Her new novel, Mecca, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in March 2022.

Douglas McCulloh is an artist, writer, and senior curator at the California Museum of Photography. His work has been shown nationally and internationally in more than 250 exhibitions including Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City; Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles; Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; and Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.