Join Alissa Quart in conversation with Alex Miller, Annabelle Gurwitch, Katha Pollitt and Ray Suarez, to celebrate the launch of the anthology Going for Broke, a collaboration between Haymarket Books and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Going for Broke: Living on the Edge in the World’s Richest Country, edited by Alissa Quart, Executive Director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and David Wallis, former Managing Director of EHRP, gives voice to a range of gifted writers for whom "economic precarity" is more than just another assignment. All illustrate what the late Barbara Ehrenreich, who conceived of EHRP, once described as "the real face of journalism today: not million dollar-a-year anchorpersons, but low-wage workers and downwardly spiraling professionals."

"Going for Broke is a gut punch, a collective portrait of precarity, a book of testimony and astonishing courage. This is a book with a pulse. It’s angry, as it must be, and often beautiful, and always brilliant with the illumination of injustice. These essays and memoirs and poems and pictures—this documentary art—is vital, intimate, and necessary. Please, read this heartbreaking, heart-mending volume.”

—Jeff Sharlet, New York Times-bestselling author of The Undertow

***Register through Eventbrite to receive a link to the video conference on the day of the event. This event will also be recorded and live captioning will be provided.***

Speakers:

Alissa Quart is the author of Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream and executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. She has written for many publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Time. Her honors include an Emmy Award, the SPJ Award, and a Nieman Fellowship. She is the author of four previous books of nonfiction, including Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America and Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers, and two books of poetry, most recently Thoughts and Prayers.

Alex Miller, a reporting journalism fellow for EHRP, is a navy veteran and native Chicagoan. He’s been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire, and Wired. In addition, he has also been featured in the anthologies The Byline Bible and The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook. He lives in New York and is writing a mid-grade memoir about his experience of going to school for the first time at eleven years old.

Annabelle Gurwitch is a New York Times bestselling author of five books, a Thurber Prize for American Humor Writing finalist, and an actress. Her writing frequently appears in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles Magazine. This essay, which was awarded an Excellence in Journalism citation by the Los Angeles Press Corp, is included in a longer form in her most recent collection of essays, You’re Leaving When? Adventures in Downward Mobility, a New York Times Favorite Book for Healthy Living 2022.

Ray Suarez (@RaySuarezNews) was a senior correspondent for PBS News- Hour and host of the public radio show America Abroad. He is host of EHRP’s podcast Going for Broke and co-hosts the program and podcast WorldAffairs for KQED-FM and the World Affairs Council.

Katha Pollitt, the author of Virginity or Death!, is a poet, essayist, and columnist for The Nation. She has won many prizes and awards for her work, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for her first collection of poems, Antarctic Traveller, and two National Magazine Awards for essays and criticism. She lives in New York City.

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This event is co-sponsored by Haymarket Books and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programming work.