🎙 INTERVIEW [FREE]: Memoir, Theater, and the Courage to Write w/ Maggie Andersen

​What does it mean to turn a life of art, love, and loss into story? How do we write honestly about the people who shaped us? And what can theater teach us about the art of memoir?

​In her debut memoir No Stars in Jefferson Park (Northwestern University Press), writer and professor Maggie Andersen tells a Chicago coming-of-age story that alternates between the exhilaration of founding a theater company and the devastating realities of loss, resilience, and rebuilding.

​Join us for a conversation with Maggie as we discuss the craft of storytelling at the intersection of theater and memoir, what it means to write through loss, and the risks and revelations of choosing your own story.

​We’ll also explore: 

• ​The intersection of theater-making and memoir-writing

• ​Translating performance into prose: lessons from the stage for the page

• ​Writing honestly about love, friendship, and loss

• ​The making of No Stars in Jefferson Park, her debut memoir

​About Maggie Andersen

​Maggie Andersen has published fiction and nonfiction in magazines such as Salt Hill, Blood Orange, the Los Angeles Review, Creative Nonfiction, Grain, Cutbank, and DIAGRAM, among others. She has been a finalist for the Montana Prize for Nonfiction, and nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Maggie is Associate Professor of English at Dominican University and a proud ensemble member at the Gift Theatre. Her debut memoir, No Stars in Jefferson Park, will be published by Northwestern University Press in October 2025. She lives in Chicago with her husband, John, and her son, Archie, in the apartment where she was raised. You can find her on Instagram @maggieemlynandersen.

​​**Held immediately following our Writers’ Hour PT session, in the same room.** 

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