Join acclaimed author Daniel Handler and artist Julie Heffernan, and curator Aleesa Alexander and artist Wanxin Zhang, for dynamic conversations about babes in the woods, graphic novels, spirit houses, and ghosts.

Daniel Handler (of Lemony Snicket fame) will be in conversation with Julie Heffernan on the occasion of her debut graphic novel, Babe in the Woods, or, The Art of Getting Lost, a wholly original and visually stunning four-color graphic work of autofiction about a young mother who—lost overnight on a hike with her infant son—experiences an extraordinary journey of memory, remorse, and rebirth that offers her a new way of seeing the world.

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Dr. Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Cantor Arts Center and Co-director of the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI), will be in conversation with Wanxin Zhang to discuss his work in Spirit House, a major exhibition at the Cantor Arts Center with a newly released catalogue, now available through EXiT. Spirit House is a significant exhibition related to the museum’s Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) that investigates how contemporary artists of Asian descent challenge the boundary between life and death through art. A thematic exploration of the work of thirty-three Asian American and Asian diasporic artists, Spirit House asks the question, what does it mean to speak to ghosts, inhabit haunted spaces, be reincarnated, or enter different dimensions?

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This special event and preview are co-hosted by EXiT, the book store and artist-made gifts store at Catharine Clark Gallery, and held in celebration of Julie Heffernan's solo exhibition, Whether You Fall (North Gallery) and Wanxin Zhang's solo exhibition, California Artist, Too (South Gallery), opening November 23, with a reception that is free and open to the public from 2-4pm.

Learn more about current and upcoming exhibitions.

Tickets are $5, which can be applied to the purchase of a book from EXiT on the night of the event. Refreshments will be served.

Schedule:

6:00pm: Exhibition preview

6:30 - 6:45pm: Aleesa Alexander in conversation with Wanxin Zhang

6:45 - 7:00pm: Daniel Handler in conversation with Julie Heffernan

7:00 - 7:15pm: Q + A

7:15 - 8:00pm: Exhibition preview continues

Author bios:

Daniel Handler is the author of seven novels, including Why We Broke Up, All The Dirty Parts, Bottle Grove, and the 2024 memoir And Then? And Then? What Else? As Lemony Snicket, he is the author of far too many books for children including Poison for Breakfast, the four-volume All The Wrong Questions, and the thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has been adapted for screen and television.

His books have sold more than 70 million copies and have been translated into 40 languages. Most recently, he wrote the morals and introduction for the 2024 Arion Press edition of Fables of Aesop. Daniel lives in San Francisco with the illustrator Lisa Brown, to whom he is married.

Dr. Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander is the Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Co-Director of the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, where she has been for the last 6 years. She oversees the collection of modern and contemporary art at the Cantor Arts Center. Aleesa is the curator of Spirit House (2024), Livien Yin: Thirsty (2024), East of the Pacific: Making Histories of Asian American Art (2022), and The Faces of Ruth Asawa (2022). She co-founded the AAAI in 2021 with art history professor Marci Kwon, and together, they lead this ongoing initiative dedicated to supporting artists of Asian descent, which they do through collection-building, exhibitions, research-driven programs, teaching, and community outreach.

Daniel Handler + Julie Heffernan \ Aleesa Alexander + Wanxin Zhang

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