Sunday Social: Jessica Hopper’s Night Moves with Danez Smith

Join us for this homecoming event with acclaimed music and cultural critic Jessica Hopper, featuring her new memoir, Night Moves. Poet Danez Smith will lead Jessica in conversation  in the Target Performance Hall, followed by a book signing and reception. LEARN MORE.

“In Night Moves, Jessica Hopper opens the window to a past that might have been my past, or your past, or the past of someone you know. It is a book of poems, it is a memoir, it is a living journal, all at once. This is the best writing—personal, but with two arms held wide open to invite you in. Night Moves is a book teeming with generosity. It gives and gives and asks only for an eager imagination in return.”—Hanif Abdurraqib

“In this lively and funny collection, she bears vivid witness to an industrial punk landscape that is both crumbling and evolving beneath her bare feet.”—Kirkus

Written in taut, mesmerizing, often hilarious scenes drawn from 2004 through 2009, Night Moves captures the fierce friendships and small moments that form us all. Drawing on her personal journals, Jessica Hopper chronicles her time as a DJ, living in decrepit punk houses, biking to bad loft parties with her friends, exploring Chicago deep into the night. And, along the way, she creates an homage to vibrant corners of the city that have been muted by sleek development. A book birthed in the amber glow of Chicago streetlamps, Night Moves is about a transformative moment of cultural history—and how a raw, rebellious writer found her voice.

Jessica reads the introduction to Night Moves HERE.
Jessica reads from “The Night” from Night Moves HERE.

JESSICA HOPPER is a music critic and the author of The First Collection of Criticism By A Living Female Rock Critic. She was formerly the Editorial Director at MTV News, and an editor at Pitchfork and Rookie. Her essays have appeared in Best Music Writing for 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, and 2011. Her book The Girls’ Guide to Rocking was named one of 2009’s Notable Books For Young Readers by the American Library Association.

DANEZ SMITH is a Black, queer, poz writer & performer from St. Paul, MN. Danez is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017), a finalist for the National Book Award, and [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award & the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. Danez is also the author of two chapbooks, hands on your knees (2013, Penmanship Books) and black movie (2015, Button Poetry), winner of the Button Poetry Prize. They are the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and is a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. Danez’s work has been featured widely including in on Buzzfeed, The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, Best American Poetry, Poetry Magazine, and on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Danez is a member of the Dark Noise Collective and is the co-host of VS with Franny Choi, a podcast sponsored by the Poetry Foundation and Postloudness.