Jo Firestone and Guest Performers Present Your Hearts, Your Scars by Adina Talve-Goodman

Wednesday, 7:00 pm EDT February 1, 2023

The Center for Fiction
& Livestreamed

YOUR HEARTS, YOUR SCARS 9781954276055 - Eliana Cohen-Orth

Registration includes a copy of Your Hearts, Your Scars. There will be a reception following the event with drinks provided.

Join comedian Jo Firestone, author Hannah Tinti, publisher Erika Goldman, and more special guests to celebrate the launch of Your Hearts, Your Scars by Adina Talve-Goodman. Published posthumously, the essay collection explores Talve-Goodman’s experience as a heart transplant patient and proves she was a writer wise beyond her years. Whether writing about the experience of taking her old heart home from the hospital (and passing it around the Thanksgiving table), a summer camp for young transplant patients, or a memorable night on the town, Your Hearts, Your Scars is a moving reflection on chance and gratitude, and a testament to hope and kindness. The event will feature performances by Maeve Higgins, Ariel Kavoussi, and Nadia Pinder.

“Heartfelt and richly passionate impressions from a creative writer gone too soon…. Never maudlin or overly sympathetic, the book shows how she transformed her physical limitations into an outward source of strength, and her vividly drawn essays effectively enlighten and educate.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Presented in partnership with Bellevue Literary Press and One Story.

Featuring

Jo Firestone

Jo Firestone

Jo Firestone is a comedian, actor, and writer whose work can be seen on Joe Pera Talks With You, Ziwe, Teenage Euthanasia, The First Lady, Shrill, and more. She co-hosts the podcast Dr. Gameshow with Manolo Moreno on the Maximum Fun network. Her album “The Hits” is available on Comedy Central Records. She has created 3 specials, Good Timing with Jo Firestone on Peacock, Rate the Cookie on Adult Swim, and a half hour for Comedy Central. She is the co-creator of the best-selling card game “Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers.” Her new card game, “FRUITS,” which she co-created with Josh Knapp, is available wherever you like to buy books. She lives in New York.
Hannah Tinti

Hannah Tinti

Hannah Tinti is the author of the bestselling novel The Good Thief, which won The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the story collection Animal Crackers, a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her latest novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, is a national bestseller and is in development for television. She teaches creative writing at New York University’s MFA program and co-founded the Sirenland Writers Conference. Tinti is also the co-founder and executive editor of One Story.

Photo Credit: Honorah Tinti
Erika Goldman

Erika Goldman

Publisher and Editorial Director Erika Goldman co-founded Bellevue Literary Press (BLP) with Jerome Lowenstein, MD, in 2007. Over the course of her career, she has been an editor of fiction and nonfiction at several major publishing houses in New York City, including St. Martin’s Press, Charles Scribner’s Sons, Simon & Schuster, and W. H. Freeman.

Photo Credit: Nadêge Giraudet
Maeve Higgins

Maeve Higgins

Maeve Higgins is a writer whose work appears regularly in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and the Guardian. She’s the author of Maeve in America and Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them. A New Yorker originally from Ireland, she is an NPR favorite, and hosts a live comedy show each week in Brooklyn. In 2020, her starring role in the comedy horror movie Extra Ordinary garnered acclaim around the world.
Ariel Kavoussi

Ariel Kavoussi

Ariel Kavoussi is a filmmaker, producer and actor based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art’s Documentary Fortnight, Dia: Chelsea, Anthology Film Archives, the Williams College Museum of Art, Woodstock Film Festival, Loft Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival, Lighthouse International Film Festival, and elsewhere. As an actor, she can be seen in Onur Tukel’s dark comedic feature Catfight, the Netflix series Maniac, Alex Karpovsky’s Oh, Jerome No, and heard as the voice of the ‘Operator’ on Amy-Sherman Palladino’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Ariel is currently at work on her feature directorial debut film. She mainly makes ‘funny’ things: www.arielkavoussi.com.
Nadia Pinder

Nadia Pinder

Nadia Pinder is a Brooklyn-based comedian, theater performer, storyteller, owner of a tie dye business, and a long-standing member of the gig economy. Follow her tie dye on Instagram at @stuydyed and her performances at @nadiapinder.

Featured Book

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Your Hearts, Your Scars

By Adina Talve-Goodman

Published by Bellevue Literary Press

PURCHASE

Adina Talve-Goodman was born with a congenital heart condition and survived multiple operations over the course of her childhood, including a heart transplant at age nineteen. In these seven essays, she tells the story of her chronic illness and her youthful search for love and meaning, never forgetting that her adult life is tied to the loss of another person—the donor of her transplanted heart.

Whether writing about the experience of taking her old heart home from the hospital (and passing it around the Thanksgiving table), a summer camp for young transplant patients, or a memorable night on the town, Talve-Goodman’s writing is filled with curiosity, humor, and compassion. Published posthumously, Your Hearts, Your Scars is the work of a writer wise beyond her years, a moving reflection on chance and gratitude, and a testament to hope and kindness.

Adina Talve-Goodman (1986–2018) grew up with her family in St. Louis. Born with a congenital heart condition, she underwent a heart transplant at age nineteen. She went on to graduate from Washington University and perform internationally at the Academia dell’Arte in Italy and Globe Theater in London. She later became a mentor for Girls Write Now and the managing editor of the celebrated literary magazine One Story. She won the Bellevue Literary Review Felice Buckvar Prize for Nonfiction, and was recognized for her community work with the Hadassah Advocacy Award. She was diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma, caused by post-transplant immunosuppressants, as she was attending the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and working on what would become her debut collection of essays, Your Hearts, Your Scars (Bellevue Literary Press). Learn more about Adina at www.adinatalvegoodman.com.

About Our Partners

Bellevue Literary Press (BLP) is devoted to publishing literary fiction and nonfiction at the intersection of the arts and sciences because of a conviction that science and the humanities are natural companions for understanding the human experience. It features exceptional literature that explores the nature of consciousness, embodiment, and the underpinnings of the social contract. Its goal is to foster a rich, interdisciplinary dialogue that will forge new tools for thinking and engaging with the world.

Founded in 2002, One Story is an award-winning non-profit literary publisher. Its flagship publication, One Story has received the AWP Small Press Publisher Award, CLMP’s Firecracker Award, a 2020 Whiting Prize, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for editorial excellence. In 2012, One Story launched One Teen Story, a literary magazine for young adult readers that publishes the work of teen writers. One Story is committed to supporting the art form of the short story and the authors who write them—through publication, education, and mentorship. To find out more, visit www.one-story.com.