Please join us in celebrating the release of THE WANDERING WOMB by S. L. Wisenberg. For this event, Wisenberg will be in conversation with Aimee Levitt. 

Please note: Pre-registration for this event is required. By pre-registering, you are verifying that you are fully vaccinated and will wear a mask throughout the entirety of the event.

REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT HERE!

Even as a fourth-generation Jewish Texan, S. L. Wisenberg has always felt the ghost of Europe dogging her steps, making her feel uneasy in her body and in the world. At age six, she’s sure that she hears Nazis at her bedroom window and knows that after they take her away, she’ll die without her asthma meds. In her late twenties, she infiltrates sorority rush at her alma mater, curious about whether she’ll get a bid now. Later in life, she makes her first and only trip to the mikvah while healing from a breast biopsy (benign this time), prompting an exploration of misogyny, shame, and woman-fear in rabbinical tradition.

With wit, verve, blood, scars, and a solid dose of self-deprecation, Wisenberg wanders across the expanse of continents and combs through history books and family records in her search for home and meaning. Her travels take her from Selma, Alabama, where her Eastern European Jewish ancestors once settled, to Vienna, where she tours Freud’s home and figures out what women really want, and she visits Auschwitz, which—disappointingly—leaves no emotional mark.

S. L. WISENBERG is the author of The Sweetheart Is In; Holocaust Girls: History, Memory & Other Obsessions; and The Adventures of Cancer Bitch. She’s the editor of Another Chicago Magazine and is a longtime friend of the store.  She’s been awarded a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Illinois Arts Council.  She co-directed the MA/MFA in Creative Writing Program at Northwestern for a decade.

Aimee Levitt is a writer in Chicago. Her work has appeared in Eater, the Guardian, the Forward, and National Geographic Traveller, and she was formerly a staff writer and editor at the Chicago Reader.

Image Description: A pink graphic with the faint background of open books. To the right, a large photographic portrait of the author, S.L. WISENBERG, next to a smaller photo of the book cover for THE WANDERING WOMB. The text reads, “Women and Children First presents S.L. Wisenberg, Tuesday April 11, 7PM CT, masks and proof of vaccination required.”

Accessibility: Email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com with questions or to request accommodations.

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Tags: Aimee Levitt, Chicago, Edgewater, S.L. Wisenberg, THE WANDERING WOMB by S.L. Wisenberg, Women & Children First Bookstore