Crafting the Truth: The Editor-Author Relationship in Memoir with Amanda Hess, Aymann Ismail & Thomas Gebremedhin

Relationships between authors and their editors are unique, complicated, vital and revealing. Challenges are faced and enlightenment is gained. It can turn an author's solitary, deeply personal experience into a beautiful and open collaboration.

Amanda Hess (The New York Times), author of Second Life & Aymann Ismail (Slate), author of Becoming Baba sit down with their editor Thomas Gebremedhin (Vice President & Executive Editor at Doubleday) to discuss their new memoirs and how their experiences working together shape how they tell their stories.

Join Amanda Hess, Aymann Ismail and Thomas Gebremedhin for a live conversation, in-person or online, on Wednesday, July 30 at 6:30 PM. Copies of Second Life and Becoming Baba will be available for purchase onsite at the event courtesy of the NYPL Shop.

To join in person | Please be sure to register for an In-Person Ticket. Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. If you register for multiple tickets, please provide the name of each person who will be attending the event or arrive with your entire party present. Seats cannot be saved for late arrivals. Only registered patrons will be granted initial entry into the event space. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program for any seats that may become available prior to showtime.

To join the livestream | A livestream of this event will be available on the NYPL event page. To receive an email reminder shortly in advance of the event, please be sure to register!

• Borrow: NYPL Catalog


• E-Book app: SimplyE, available on iOS and Android


• Purchase: Books will be available onsite at the event courtesy of the NYPL shop.

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COVID PROTOCOLS FOR IN-PERSON PROGRAMS

The New York Public Library no longer mandates proof of vaccination at large-scale public events.

If you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or suspect you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, please stay home.

ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

Livestream | Captions and a transcript will be provided. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Amanda Hess is a critic at large for The New York Times. She writes about internet and pop culture for the Arts section and con­tributes regularly to The New York Times Maga­zine. Hess has worked as an internet columnist for Slate magazine, an editor at Good magazine, and an arts and nightlife columnist at the Wash­ington City Paper, and has served as the second vice president for the NewsGuild of New York, a union representing media workers. She has also written for such publications as ESPN The Magazine, Wired, and Pacific Standard, where her feature on the online harassment of women won a National Magazine Award for Public Interest.

Aymann Ismail is a staff writer at Slate, the author of Becoming Baba, and the president of AMEJA. He was formerly the staff video and photo editor at ANIMALNewYork. He grew up in Newark, NJ, received an art degree from Rutgers University, and was arrested by the NYPD for trespassing on the Williamsburg Bridge in 2016. In 2018, he received an ASME Next award. In 2021, his essay The Store That Called the Cops on George Floyd was nominated for a National Magazine Award in Reporting and won a Writers Guild Award. His work has been featured by CNN, The New York Times, NPR, GQ, among others. He still lives in Newark with his wife and two young kids.

Thomas Gebremedhin is the Vice President and Executive Editor of Doubleday, and the Editorial Director for Outsider Editions. His earliest works include Hua Hsu's Pulitzer Prize Winning Stay True, and Eric Puchner's Dream State, a 2025 Oprah's Book Club Pick. Many of his authors have won or been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and have been cited on the annual New York Times Best Books of the year list and, most recently, the New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century list. This year Thomas debuted Outsider Editions, a reissue series dedicated to bringing attention to significant literary works that have been largely neglected in discussions of the literary canon including Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy by Shiva Naipaul, Natives of My Person by George Lamming, Squandering the Blue by Kate Braverman, Fixer Chao by Han Ong, and Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir by Jean Said Makdisi, among others.

CONNECT

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