Events

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The cofounder of BET and first African American woman billionaire shares her deeply personal journey through love and loss, tragedy and triumph—an inspiring story of overcoming toxic influences, discovering her true self, and at last finding happiness in her work and life.
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Sheila Johnson is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, cofounder of BET, founder and CEO of Salamander Hotels & Resorts, and the only African American woman to have a principal shareholder stake in three professional sports teams.
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Lee Daniels is an Academy Award® nominated filmmaker whose credits include MONSTER’S BALL, making Daniels the first African American producer of an Academy Award®-winning and nominated film;  PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE;  THE BUTLER and THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY. His next film is THE DELIVERANCE (Netflix) which he wrote and directed and produced. TV credits include EMPIRE.
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From humble beginnings as a schoolgirl and young violinist in Maywood, Illinois, Sheila Johnson rose to become one of the most accomplished businesswomen in America. A cofounder of Black Entertainment Television, she became an entrepreneur and philanthropist at the highest levels.
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But that success came at a painful personal cost.
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Sheila grew up in a middle-class family that encouraged her love of the arts and music. But her idyllic childhood ended at age sixteen when her beloved father announced he was leaving for another woman, an act that shattered her mother and destroyed Sheila’s trust. She vowed she’d never be in her mother’s position—dependent on a man for her sense of self-worth and for financial security. Yet when she was barely out of her teens, Sheila married a man who would take her right down that same unfortunate path.
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Filled with sharply drawn, emotionally powerful scenes, Walk Through Fire traces the hardships Sheila faced in her marriage and her professional life. Despite her skills as a violinist and music teacher, as well as her obvious entrepreneurial talent, she had to fight to overcome self-doubt and fears of failure. Sheila vividly details her struggles, including battling institutional racism, losing a child, suffering emotional abuse in her thirty-three-year marriage, and plunging into a deep depression with her divorce. And yet, out of that pain came renewed purpose and meaning. In the third act of her life, Sheila Johnson has not only made her mark as the founder of Salamander Hotels & Resorts and the only Black female co-owner of three professional sports teams, she has also, finally, found true love.
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Walk Through Fire is a uniquely American success story. And it is the deeply personal portrait of one woman who, despite heartache and obstacles, finally found herself and her place in the world.

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VIRTUAL EVENT ONLY, November 14 (click here)
TICKETS:
$45 Virtual Admission + signed book (includes shipping to US addresses)
*Includes access to watch the event on video-on-demand for five days after it airs
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Go‑to expert on gender identity, Schuyler Bailar, offers an essential, urgent guide that changes the conversation.
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Schuyler Bailar (he/him) is an educator, author, and advocate. He is also the first transgender athlete to compete in any sport on an NCAA Division 1 men’s team. His work has earned him numerous honors including NYC Pride Grand Marshall, the Out 100, LGBTQ Nation’s Instagram Advocate of the year, and the Harvard Varsity Director’s Award. In addition to being one of the top LGBTQ+ educators and advocates, Schuyler is a leading DEI speaker and advisor. Schuyler also hosts the podcast “Dear Schuyler” on gender and culture and is the creator of the LaneChanger.com gender literacy online learning series. He holds a degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology from Harvard, and works in four research labs focusing in clinical psychology and public health.
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Dylan Mulvaney (she/they) is a trans actress, comic, and content creator of the viral TikTok series “Days of Girlhood,” which raised $200,000 for The Trevor Project to support LGBTQIA+ teens in crisis. Winner of the 2022 “TikTok Trailblazer” award, Queerty “Groundbreaker Award,” THEM “Now Award,” a Webby “Special Achievement Award,” and many others, Mulvaney was invited by President Joe Biden to speak at the White House about trans rights. Pre-pandemic, Dylan played Elder White in the “Book of Mormon” Broadway musical. She now lives in LA where she works to bring trans stories to the mainstream.
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Anti-transgender legislation is being introduced in state governments around the United States in record-breaking numbers. Trans people are under attack in sports, healthcare, school curriculum, bathrooms, bars, and nearly every walk of life. He/She/They addresses fundamental topics, from why being transgender is not a choice and why pronouns are important, to more complex issues including how gender-affirming healthcare can be lifesaving and why allowing trans youth to play sports is good for all kids. With a relatable narrative rooted in facts, science, and history, Schuyler helps restore common sense and humanity to a discussion that continues to be divisively coopted and deceptively politicized.
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Schuyler Bailar didn’t set out to be an activist, but his very public transition to the Harvard men’s swim team put him in the spotlight. His choice to be open about his transition and share his experience has touched people around the world. His plain-spoken education has evolved into tireless advocacy for inclusion and collective liberation. In He/She/They, Schuyler uses storytelling and the art of conversation to give us the essential language and context of gender, meeting everyone where they are and paving the way for understanding, acceptance, and, most importantly: connection. He/She/They speaks to trans folks directly, answering the question, “does it get better?” with a resounding yes, celebrating radical trans joy. Myth-busting, affirming, compassionate, and fierce, He/She/They is a crucial, urgent–and lifesaving–book that forever changes the conversation about gender.

This event has been cancelled.
All attendees have been refunded.
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From the founding member of Sonic Youth, a passionate memoir tracing the author’s life and art—from his teen years as a music obsessive, to the formation of his legendary rock group, to thirty years of creation, experimentation, and wonder.
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Thurston Moore is a founding member of Sonic Youth, a band born in New York in 1981 that spent thirty years at the vanguard of alternative rock, influencing and inspiring such acts as Nirvana, Pavement, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, My Bloody Valentine, and Beck. The band’s album Daydream Nation was chosen by the Library of Congress for historical preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2006. Moore is involved in publishing and poetry and teaches at the Summer Writing Workshop at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. 
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“Downtown scientists rejoice! For Thurston Moore has unearthed the missing links, the sacred texts, the forgotten stories, and the secret maps of the lost golden age. This is history—scuffed, slightly bent, plenty noisy, and indispensable.”

—Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Underground Railroad and Harlem Shuffle
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Moore cofounded Sonic Youth with Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo. The band became a fixture in New York’s burgeoning No Wave scene—an avant-garde collision of art and sound, poetry and punk. The band would evolve from critical darlings to commercial heavyweights, headlining festivals around the globe while helping introduce listeners to such artists as Nirvana, Hole, and Pavement, and playing alongside such icons as Neil Young and Iggy Pop. Through it all, Moore maintained an unwavering love of music: the new, the unheralded, the challenging, the irresistible.
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In the spirit of Just Kids, Sonic Life offers a window into the trajectory of a celebrated artist and a tribute to an era of explosive creativity. It presents a firsthand account of New York in a defining cultural moment, a history of alternative rock as it was birthed and came to dominate airwaves, and a love letter to music, whatever the form. This is a story for anyone who has ever felt touched by sound—who knows the way the right song at the right moment can change the course of a life.

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Virtual event only (November 8) Tickets here 
TICKETS:
$45 Virtual Admission + signed book (includes shipping to US addresses)
*Includes access to watch the event on video-on-demand for five days after it airs
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World champion runner Caster Semenya offers an empowering account of her extraordinary life and career, and her trailblazing battle to compete on her own terms.
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Caster Semenya, OIB, is a South African middle-distance runner and winner of two Olympic gold medals and three World Championships in the women’s 800 meters. The Race to Be Myself is her debut. She lives in Pretoria, South Africa.
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“Caster’s story isn’t just a tale of perseverance and poise, it’s a story that makes us all interrogate our humanity and the world we build with our actions every day. An essential read.”― Trevor Noah
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Olympian and World Champion Caster Semenya is finally ready to share the vivid and heartbreaking story of how the world came to know her name. Thrust into the spotlight at just eighteen years old after winning the Berlin World Championships in 2009, Semenya’s win was quickly overshadowed by criticism and speculation about her body, and she became the center of a still-raging firestorm about how gender plays out in sports, our expectations of female athletes, and the right to compete as you are.

Told with captivating speed and candor, The Race to Be Myself is the journey of Semenya’s years as an athlete in the public eye, and her life behind closed doors. From her rural beginnings running free in the dust, to crushing her opponents in record time on the track, to the accusations and falsehoods spread about her in the press, the legal trial she went through in order to compete, and the humiliation she has been forced to endure publicly and privately. This book is a searing testimony for anyone who has been forced to stop doing what they love.
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Diana Nyad is an American author, journalist, motivational speaker, and lomng-distance swimmer. Nyad gained national attention in 1975 when she swam around Manhattan (28 miles) and in 1979 when she swam from North Bimini, The Bahamas, to Juno Beach, Florida (102 miles). In 2013, on her fifth attempt and at age 64, she became the first person to have swum from Cuba to Florida without the aid of a shark cage, swimming from Havana to Key West (110 miles).

Virtual event Tickets for October 30 (Click here)
TICKETS:
$45 Virtual Admission + signed book (includes shipping to US addresses)
*Includes access to watch the event on video-on-demand for five days after it airs
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From the best-selling author of The Big Short and Flash Boys, the story of FTX’s spectacular collapse and the enigmatic founder at its center.
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Michael Lewis is the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, The Undoing Project, and The Fifth Risk. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his family.  He has appeared at Live Talks Los Angeles for his last four books: Flashboys(with Malcolm Gladwell); The Undoing Project (with Mindy Kaling); The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy (with Larry Wilmore); and for The Premonition: A Pandemic Story (with Geraldine Brooks).  He also interviewed Walter Isaacson for his book, Leonardo da Vinci.
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When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
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In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking readers into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system. Both psychological portrait and financial roller-coaster ride, Going Infinite is Michael Lewis at the top of his game, tracing the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own—until it all came undone.
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D.A. Wallach is a venture capital investor and an acclaimed recording artist who Fast Company named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business. As co-founder and General Partner of Time BioVentures, he brings this experience to a new generation of talented entrepreneurs in the life sciences. His band Chester French, was signed by Interscope Records, where they released two full-length albums. He has toured with Lady Gaga, Weezer, and Blink 182, performed on TV Shows including Jimmy Kimmel Live and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. In 2011, D.A. stopped touring in order to focus on his other passion, investing. He has since built a parallel career as a venture capitalist, backing a series of industry-defining technology companies including Spotify, SpaceX, Ripple, The Boring Company, and Memphis Meats. He publishes essays on a range of topics on his website.

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A spirit-lifting memoir on how to turn pain into purpose, how to live always in gratitude, and how to face down tragedy and turn it into love.
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Nicole Avant is a philanthropist and filmmaker, as well as a former diplomat. After a career in entertainment and political fundraising, she served as the United States Ambassador to the Bahamas under President Obama. In 2019, she produced the critically acclaimed and award-winning documentary The Black Godfather, and in 2022, she produced Trees of Peace, a film about the Rwandan genocide. 

Avant grew up surrounded by some of the most extraordinary artists of our time: Bill Withers, Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones, Sidney Poitier. Her parents—entertainment mogul, Clarence Avant, and legendary philanthropist, Jacqueline Avant—turned their home into a place of refuge and inspiration for a generation of geniuses. Nicole drew on that magical upbringing to create a stellar career in the music business, become the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas, and produce critically acclaimed award-winning films and documentaries. Then, an unthinkable tragedy struck: her mother was fatally shot in December 2021.
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In this searing and inspiring memoir, Nicole turns the pain of her family’s loss into the fuel that pushes her forward into an even more committed life of love and activism: “We can’t banish evil,” she writes. “We have to learn to swim through trauma and live for all of those who can’t.” Turning tragedy into inspiration, Think You’ll Be Happy—her mom’s last words to Nicole—provides a roadmap for anyone working to remain positive and anchored in hope. 
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“At some point in every life, we are faced with a challenge that we think we can’t overcome. This book should be required reading for anyone wanting to understand how to trust in the light even at the darkest times. Drawing on her own grit, grace and gratitude – not to mention a deep and abiding faith – Nicole Avant has gifted us a roadmap out of the darkness of her own profound loss and into a life filled with meaning, purpose and service.” — Jay Shetty, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of Think Like A Monk.
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Rashida  Jones  is an actor, writer, producer, director and podcaster.  Her Film & TV credits include: Sunny, Silo, On the Rocks, #blackAF, Duncanville, Klaus, Spies in Disguise, The Social Network, Celeste and Jesse Forever, The Muppets and I Love You, Man. Additional credits include Angie Tribeca, Parks and Recreation, The Office, Boston Public, Freaks and Geeks, Chappelle Show and Portlandia.She  recently launched a podcast with Bill Gates, Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Ask Big Questions with their premiere episode featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Directing credits include Quincy, and the music video for Sara Bareilles’ Brave and episodic work on #blackAF, Angie Tribeca and Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On.