Cultural Events Calendar

On June 22, First Draft welcomes author Torrey Peters to TACAW. Stag Dance is the sophomore book by Torrey Peters, consisting of three short stories and the titular novel, released in March to rave reviews.

Torrey Peters is the author of the novel Detransition, Baby, which won the 2021 PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction and was named a Best Book of the Century by the New York Times. She is an amateur sauna builder, rides a pink motorcycle, and splits her time between Brooklyn and an off-grid cabin in Vermont.

Join us for the free public lecture, William A. Nitze Community Lecture with Robin Wall Kimmerer at Paepcke Auditorium at 5 pm on Friday, July 18. Registration will be open June 1.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim.

A Young Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure

BY Mimi Zieman, M.D.

Tap Dancing on Everest, at once riveting and reflective, explores the risks we take to become our truest selves. Mimi Zieman blazes an unexpected path from the daughter of immigrants raised in New York City to a 25-year-old medical student who becomes the doctor and only woman on a team attempting a new route on the remote East Face of Everest in Tibet. In an outrageous plan, the team embarks without the use of supplemental oxygen, Sherpa support, or chance for rescue. When three climbers disappear during their summit attempt, Zieman reaches the knife edge of her limits, digging deeply to fight for the climbers’ lives and to find her voice.

Weaving adventure and medicine in a feminist story of self-discovery, Tap Dancing on Everest captures the curiosity and awe of a young woman as she faces down childhood messages to stay small and safe and ventures into the unknown. The book was acknowledged: Best Memoir of 2024 by the American Writing Awards