Stories, stand-up, and super fresh interviews with hosts Jon Ronson and Maeve Higgins. Get together over a slice of pie, and enjoy a warm summer evening with some of New York's best-est.
ABOUT THE STORYTELLERS
Elna Baker is a writer and comedic storyteller. She's appeared on This American Life, Prairie Home Companion, The Moth Radio Hour, All Things Considered, among others. She's written for ELLE, Glamour, and several other magazines. Her memoir The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance was published by Penguin, earning four stars in People Magazine and the 2010 AML award for best humor writing. Her upcoming novel You Are My Revenge, co-written with Kevin Townley, will be published in 2015.
The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) are the producers of James Beard and du-Pont-Columbia Award-winning series, Hidden Kitchens, heard on NPR's Morning Edition, as well as two Peabody Award-winning NPR series, Lost & Found Sound and The Sonic Memorial Project. They also produce The Hidden World of Girls {Girls and the Women They Become} heard on NPR, hosted by Tina Fey. Their first book, Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes & More from NPR's Kitchen Sisters received a James Beard Award nomination and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Their latest NPR Special, Hidden Kitchens World was hosted by Frances McDormand. Their new podcast, Fugitive Waves is part of the Radiotopia collective from PRX. They are currently working on a new season of Hidden Kitchens called "Kimchi Diplomacy: Stories of War and Peace and Food" for NPR's Morning Edition, along with their second book and their first Broadway musical.
Suzanne Wasserman is an historian and award-winning filmmaker. She is the Director of the Gotham Center for New York City History at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. She has published widely on topics such as the Great Depression, Jewish nostalgia, restaurant culture, and silent films, among others. Her award-winning films include Thunder in Guyana, about her cousin, Janet Jagan, who became President of that country; the short documentary Brooklyn among the Ruins, about a subway buff who built a life-size subway car in his apartment; Sweatshop Cinderella, about the Jewish immigrant writer Anzia Yezierska, and Meat Hooked! about New York City butchers. She is currently in pre, pre-production on a fifth film, Children and Their Discontents, about the children of psychoanalysts.
Hasan Minhaj is a comedian, actor, and writer in New York. He is the newest correspondent on the Emmy and Peabody award-winning program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. A 2014 Just For Laughs 'New Face', he was recently selected by the Sundance Institute to develop his solo show and feature film at the prestigious New Frontier Storytelling Lab. A featured storyteller for The Moth, his work has garnered acclaim in film, web, and television. He hosted the documentary special Stand Up Planet produced by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. His viral web series The Truth with Hasan Minhaj has been featured in countless publications including The Huffington Post, Gawker, and New York Times. He has been seen on a variety of other television programs including Arrested Development on Netflix, HBO's Getting On, and @Midnight on Comedy Central.
ABOUT THE HOSTS
Maeve Higgins is a comic and writer from Ireland who performs stand up regularly at UCB and Union Hall. She writes for The Irish Times and is working on her second book of essays, due to be published in the fall. She collaborates with Jon Ronson in a monthly show called "I'm New Here" in Brooklyn. Maeve moved to New York last year in the hope of winning Tinder. She hopes to feel free enough to grow out her beard one day, but for now she keeps a tweezer on her at all times.
Jon Ronson's nonfiction bestsellers include So You've Been Publicly Shamed, The Psychopath Test, Them: Adventures with Extremists, Lost at Sea, Frank: The True Story That Inspired The Movie, and The Men Who Stare At Goats, which was adapted into a film starring George Clooney. The movie adaptation of The Psychopath Test is currently in development, starring Scarlett Johansson. Ronson is a regular contributor to The Guardian, GQ and This American Life and his many documentaries include Stanley Kubrick's Boxes (Channel 4), Secret Rulers of the World (Channel 4) and Jon Ronson On (BBC Radio 4). He co-wrote with Peter Straughan the screenplay for the movie Frank, which was released in 2014 starring Michael Fassbender and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It was based on Jon's teenage years.
Illustration by Bardo Industries
SUPPORT
Our friends at Bubby's High Line have graciously donated pie for this event. Public Programs on the High Line are supported by Altman Foundation.