Coming Events
All events include a discussion or Q&A, and are open to the public unless otherwise noted. Please join me. More events will be added as dates and locations are confirmed.
Sunday, September 12, 2010 | 11 a.m – 5 p.m.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Kerrytown Book Fest at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market
The 7th annual Kerrytown Book Fest, a one-day celebration of the literary arts, features more than 40 authors.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 | 7:30 p.m.
Catonsville, Maryland
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery
Steve will deliver a talk, “Lost in the Unknown: Family Secrets and Their Consequences,” as part of the university’s Humanities Forum, an annual speakers series featuring authors and others. The event includes a Q&A discussion and book signing. Sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities and the UMBC Retriever, the campus newspaper.
Prior Appearances
Friday, July 2, 2010
Washington, D.C.
National Alliance on Mental Illness's 2010 convention
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Baltimore, Maryland
The New Mercury Reading Series
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Washington, DC
Hyatt Regency, Capitol Hill
Mental Health America’s 2010 Annual Conference
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Columbia, Maryland
The Bain Center
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Morenci, Michigan
Stair Public Library
Steve’s final stop on his Michigan Notable Book award tour.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids Public Library
Michigan Notable Book award event
Friday, May 14, 2010
Flint, Michigan
Mott Children’s Health Center
Thursday, May 13, 2010
West Bloomfield, Michigan
West Bloomfield Township Public Library
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Springfield Township, Michigan
Springfield Township Library
Michigan Notable Book award event
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Dearborn, Michigan
Dearborn Inn Conference Center
Closing plenary speech for the Wayne State University Institute of Gerontology’s annual conference, Issues in Aging.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Penn State College of Medicine
Hershey Medical Center
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Baltimore, Maryland
Roland Park Country School
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Lansing, Michigan
Reception and awards ceremony for the 2010 Michigan Notable Books winners
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Royal Oak, Michigan
At the Royal Oak Library, sponsored by the Michigan Notable Book Awards
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Hereford, Maryland
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Lewes, Delaware
Friday-Sunday, March 26-28, 2010
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
Writers at the Beach: Pure Sea Glass conference,
keynote speaker and workshop leader
Sunday, March 21, 2010
New York City
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Orlando, FL
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Lake Buena Vista, FL
Walt Disney World
The 40th National Mental Health and Addictions Conference & Expo
Monday, March 15, 2010
Winter Park, FL
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Kensington, MD
Monday, March 8, 2010
La Jolla, CA
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Thousand Oaks, CA
Thursday, March 4, 2010
San Francisco, CA
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Boca Raton, FL
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Bel Air, MD
Bel Air branch, Harford County Public Library
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Rockville, MD
Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Washington, DC
St. John’s Georgetown Episcopal Church
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Bel Air, MD
Barnes and Noble Bookstore
Monday, November 23, 2009
Chevy Chase, MD
Village of Friendship Heights Center
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Baltimore, MD
Brooklyn Branch, Enoch Pratt Library
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Farmington Hills, MI
Sponsored by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Michigan
Thursday, November 12, 2009
West Bloomfield, MI
Detroit Jewish Book Fair
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Ann Arbor, MI
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Oak Park, MI
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Washington, DC
Keynote speaker at the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s 5th annual Washington gala, “Unmasking Mental Illness.”
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Baltimore, MD
14th annual Baltimore Book Festival
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Warrenton, VA
10th annual Narrative Matters conference, sponsored by journal Health Affairs
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Washington, DC
The Newseum
Monday, September 14, 2009
Atlanta, GA
The Carter Center
Keynote speaker at the annual dinner for new and former journalism fellows of the Carter Center’s Mental Health Program.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Towson, MD
Barnes and Noble
Friday, September 11, 2009
Baltimore, MD
Keynote Speaker at the annual meeting of the Mental Health Association of Maryland.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Birmingham, MI
The Community House
Monday, July 6, 2009
Westland, MI
Public Library of Westland
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Arlington, VA
Shirlington Library
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
WAMU, 88.5 FM in DC
NPR Nationwide
The Diane Rehm Show
UPDATE: Download a podcast of this show.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Cambridge, MA
The Harvard Coop
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
New York City, NY
Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Washington, DC
Sixth and I Street Historic Synagogue
Q&A with Bob Woodward, author and Steve's Washington Post colleague.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Washington, DC
Borders
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Baltimore, MD
Enoch Pratt Central Library
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
WYPR, 88.1 FM in Baltimore
Midday with Dan Rodricks
Listen to the interview.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Baltimore, MD
Red Canoe Bookstore and Café
News
July 16, 2010
Syndicated columnist Susan Estrich features Annie’s Ghosts in a column on family secrets, praising Steve Luxenberg for his “moving and honest” account of his secret’s aunt’s unknown life. “Secrets,” she writes, “get in the way of true family, covering with shame the very relationships that need to be nourished with honesty.”
July 6, 2010
Detroit News columnist Neal Rubin on Annie’s Ghosts: An “arresting tale about the aunt he never knew. . .” Rubin’s column focused on Edward Missavage, a psychiatrist at Eloise Hospital who helped Steve with his research and then continued to look for information about Annie’s time at the institution. (Update, July 10: Ed Missavage died today at age 85. Click here to read a letter that Steve wrote for the memorial service held July 17)
June 30, 2010
On “Maryland Morning,” NPR affiliate WYPR’s daily news show, host Sheilah Kast talks with Steve Luxenberg about his recent op-ed on the coming clash between privacy and history. As researchers learn more and more about the genetic basis for physical and mental conditions, Steve’s op-ed argued, medical records for the long-deceased should be made easier to obtain. Part two of an interview taped earlier this month.
June 27, 2010
The Buffalo News picks Annie’s Ghosts for its summer beach reading list of 19 fiction and nonfiction books “waiting to be savored one by one as the wave-washed days ticked by.” The News writes: A Washington Post journalist offers a fascinating family memoir and thrilling detective story in this engrossing tale of his search to learn why his mother kept secret the fact that she had a disabled sister who was sent to an insane asylum at the age of 21.” To see all the choices, click here.
June 8, 2010
Sold: The first foreign rights for a translated version of Annie's Ghosts. Italian publisher Casini Editore plans to bring out the book later this year or early next. Watch this space for other foreign deals.
June 7, 2010
On “Maryland Morning,” NPR affiliate WYPR’s daily news show, host Sheilah Kast interviewed Steve Luxenberg about the new health care law’s expansion of mental health services. Click here to listen to the audio.
May 24, 2010
Sunday’s Detroit Free Press featured Steve Luxenberg’s op-ed, headlined “Dead and Gone and Still Private,” about the high walls that prevent family members from gaining access to the medical records of long-dead ancestors. “The recent trend toward greater restrictions on medical and mental health records has done something rare,” Luxenberg wrote. “It has conferred rights upon the dead. These rights have created an imbalance between our desire for privacy and our desire to know our own history.”
May 18, 2010
Today’s Grand Rapids Press featured a lengthy profile of Steve Luxenberg. He speaks tomorrow night at the Grand Rapids Public Library as part of his four-city Michigan Notable Book tour. Steve appeared recently at the Springfield Township Library and at the Royal Oak Library, and will visit the Stair Public Library in Morenci, on the Michigan-Ohio border, on May 20.
April 23, 2010
The award-winning Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secrets, described by one reviewer as “beautifully complex, raw and revealing,” comes out in paperback with a May 11 publication date and a list price of $15.99. Bookstores may have copies earlier, in time for Mother’s Day, and online booksellers (including amazon.com and bn.com) are accepting pre-orders at a discounted price. Author Steve Luxenberg is making several apperarances in Michigan and elsewhere after the paperback launch. Check the Events section above for the dates and times.
December 23, 2009
The Washington Post picked Annie’s Ghosts for its year-end Best Books of 2009 list. In honoring Annie’s Ghosts as one of the year's best memoirs, The Post book editors focused on Luxenberg's grace and care in researching and telling his story, quoting from Barry Werth's review: “A probing, wise and affecting memoir of family secrets and posthumous absolution.” The Post compiled the Best Books list for its Holiday Gift Guide, offering suggestions to readers hunting for literary presents.
December 11, 2009
The Library of Michigan named Annie’s Ghosts as a Michigan Notable Book for 2010, one of 20 books honored. The Notable Book award goes to nonfiction and fiction books, including children’s books, published in 2009 that employed "vivid storytelling" to draw portraits of the state, its people and its history, said Nancy Robertson, the state librarian. The citation praised Annie’s Ghosts as a “complex blend of research, cultural mores and a long-past Detroit. . . . [Luxenberg’s] story becomes a story that belongs to all of us.” Throughout 2010, the Library of Michigan sponsors a statewide tour of the books, featuring author talks, book signings and special displays at libraries and bookstores.
November 27, 2009
The Diane Rehm Show, which airs on more than 130 NPR affiliates, chose its June interview with Steve Luxenberg for re-broadcast, part of its Friday, Nov. 27 line-up on this holiday weekend.
November 12, 2009
A sold-out “Brunch With the Authors” brought a crowd of more than 200 to hear Steve and two other authors at the 58th annual Detroit Jewish Book Fair. At Steve’s other three apperances in Detroit and Ann Arbor during the same week, those in the audience shared their own stories and asked Steve for specifics about the routes he took in uncovering the documents that helped him write Annie’s Ghosts.
October 21, 2009: Richard Handler, writing in his online column called “The Ideas Guy” for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, contrasted the story told in Annie’s Ghosts to those revealed recently by TV late show host David Letterman and actress Mackenzie Phillips on the “confessional couch,” as Handler puts it. “Ordinary people have plenty of family secrets, too,” he wrote in describing why he found Annie’s Ghosts to be compelling. “Even if that eats them up inside and distorts their most intimate relationships.” Click here to read Handler’s column.
October 14, 2009
Steve delivered the keynote speech at the National Alliance on the Mentally Ill’s 5th annual “Unmasking Mental Illness” gala. The event, emceed by CNN White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux, drew about 400. Steve’s talk, “Losing an Identity, Finding a Voice,” focused on how privacy laws have hurt the effort to decrease the stigma surrounding mental illness.
September 27, 2009
Today’s Parade Magazine carried a Newsmaker interview with Steve, headlined “How We Think About Mental Illness.” Asked about his difficulty in obtaining the medical records of his secret aunt, who died in 1972, Steve said: “If we shut off medical records of people long deceased, we’re locking up information that families… ought to know.”
The published interview’s four questions and answers came from a lengthy interview conducted by Parade writer Sharon Male. Parade appears in more than 500 Sunday and weekly newspapers.
September 25, 2009
Annie’s Ghosts makes the list: The Independent Booksellers’ Fall ‘09/Winter ’10 list of recommendations for reading groups. The book appears as one of three selections in the “A-List for Nonfiction” category. Valerie Koehler, owner of the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, writes: “Luxenberg's journalistic approach to discovering the truth about his aunt is fascinating, as he mines the underlying story of secrets and their effects on families. A great reading group nonfiction pick.”
September 24, 2009
On Sunday, Sept. 27, at 4 p.m., the 14th annual Baltimore Book Festival welcomes Steve Luxenberg, author of Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret, for an hour-long conversation and book signing. Steve will appear on the CityLit stage, where book critic Susan McCallum-Smith will interview him and lead a discussion about the craft of memoir writing. Listen here to McCallum-Smith’s review of Annie’s Ghosts, broadcast in May on WYPR, a Baltimore NPR affiliate. The Baltimore Book Festival runs from Friday, Sept. 25 through Sunday, Sept. 27, and features 120 authors from all genres. This year’s authors include Buzz Aldrin, James McBride, Farai Chideya and Gwen Ifill.
September 19, 2009
The Newseum’s “Inside Media” series hosted Steve for a discussion of his three decades in journalism and how his investigative reporting skills influenced his approach to researching and writing Annie’s Ghosts. The Newseum—a 250,000-square-foot multi-media experience—blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits. The Newseum’s Maureen Freeman questioned Steve, who then took questions from the audience. Click here for a Newseum report on the session, and click here to listen an audio replay.
September 14, 2009
Steve, as the dinner speaker at the annual meeting for journalism fellows at Carter Center’s Mental Health Program, spoke on the difficulties posed by confidentiality laws for those researching mental health issues. The Carter Center, in Atlanta, awards ten fellowships a year to support American and international journalists working on projects about mental health. Rosalynn Carter, the former first lady, created the fellowship program in 1996.
September 12, 2009
Steve signed copies of Annie’s Ghosts at the Barnes and Noble store in Towson, Maryland. He joined 20 other local authors of nonfiction, fiction and children’s books for a busy Saturday afternoon of the literary kind.
September 11, 2009
Steve delivered the keynote speech today at the annual meeting of the Maryland Mental Health Association, Baltimore branch. His talk, titled “Every Generation: Evolutions and Echoes in Mental Health,” focused the changing nature of mental health treatment over the past 75 years as the states closed the large asylums that once dominated the system and the courts backed more rights for patients.
August 27, 2009
If you ever thought about exploring your own family history, Steve’s article in Ancestry Magazine will make the mission seem less daunting. Researching Annie’s Ghosts involved missteps as well as successes, and he reveals both. Ancestry’s editors chose a silver-lining approach in describing the piece: “Bad luck turns good when it sends you in a new direction, and leads you to the answer you were looking for.” (The magazine is published by the company that owns the popular genealogy website, Ancestry.com.)
August 26, 2009
On “Detroit Today,” the daily news and talk show that airs on Detroit Public Radio (WDET, 101.9 FM), host Craig Fahle questioned Steve about extracting information from Michigan’s mental health system, about piecing together his aunt’s unknown life and about secrecy’s consequences. Fahle described the book as a “gripping” read. Click here to enter information to replay the show from the WDET archives. (Tip: Where it says “Select a show,” enter “Detroit Today” from the pull-down menu. Where it says select a date, enter 8-26-09 from the pull-down). The interview occurs midway through the first hour, at 1:30 p.m.
August 14, 2009
Laura Laing, writing in the Baltimore Jewish Times, described Annie’s Ghosts as a book that delves deeply into “the complexity” of family secrets. She reported that some readers have told Steve that the book has allowed them to broach sensitive topics in their own families. “They tell me that the book has helped them,” she quoted Steve as saying, based on her interview with him.
July 25, 2009
LibraryThing, a website for book readers, invited Steve to write a piece for its July newsletter on “five books to read this summer.” Steve also is hosting an “author chat” with LibraryThing members from July 15-29. (Click here to read the chat. If you want to leave a comment or ask a question, you need to become a LibraryThing member.)
July 18, 2009
“On the Media,” a weekly show produced by WNYC and broadcast by NPR affiliates, included an eight-minute segment on Annie’s Ghosts. Read the transcript of co-host Bob Garfield’s interview with Steve about his dual role as journalist and son, and how that affected his investigation into his mother’s motivations. (The transcript page includes a clickable link to play the audio file of the interview.)
July 7, 2009
An overflow crowd of 200 came to the Birmingham Community House, north of Detroit, to hear Steve give a talk about Annie’s Ghosts, sponsored by Jewish Senior Life and the Program for Holocaust Survivors and Families. Some of the people in the book were in the audience, including social worker Rozanne Sedler from Jewish Family Service, who opened the door to the secret at the center of the book with her phone call in 1995, asking, “Does your mom have a sister?”
July 6, 2009
Steve drew a crowd of 75 to his talk at the Westland Library, which is located about two miles from Eloise, the former mental hospital where Steve’s secret aunt spent 31 years. Many in the audience either had worked at Eloise, or knew someone who had been a patient there. The local newspaper, the Westland Observer, covered the event with two articles, one on Steve’s description of life and treatment at Eloise, and a second on the local historians had helped Steve with his research.
July 2, 2009
The Jewish Book Council, the national coordinator for the annual Jewish book fairs held around the country, chose Steve as a speaker for the coming year. He will travel to events in Michigan, California, Florida and Maryland.
July 1, 2009
Metro Times, a Detroit weekly, published a wide-ranging interview with Steve, conducted by staff writer Sandra Svoboda. She singles out Annie’s Ghosts as“a moving narrative about how universal forces of history shaped” one particular family's experience.
July 1, 2009
Urbanite magazine, a Baltimore monthly, featured Annie’s Ghosts as a “critics’ pick” in its July issue. “Annie’s Ghosts moves with the slow-gathering force of a police procedural; the author methodically gathers facts, unearths informants, and compares accounts from his mother’s network of surviving friends, circling the terrible moment in 1940 when Annie was hospitalized forever,” writes David Dudley, the Urbanite’s editor, in his article.
June 9, 2009
Steve appeared at the the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C. for an hour-long discussion about how families cope with disabilities. Steve was joined by Karl Taro Greenfeld, author of Boy Alone: A Brother’s Memoir, his story of growing up with an autistic brother. Aspen Institute president Walter Isaacson moderated the discussion. Watch the video.
June 9, 2009
The Diane Rehm Show
Diane Rehm interviewed Steve at her WAMU studio in Washington DC and took questions from listeners. The show was broadcast live across the country on NPR. Download a podcast of this show.
May 31, 2009
Mary Carole McCauley, writing for the Baltimore Sun, wrote a profile of Steve and a review of Annie’s Ghosts. The feature piece explores the balance between Steve’s responsibilities as a journalist and as a son. In the review, McCauley says “Annie’s Ghosts is an exhaustively researched, often moving testament to the ties that bind families together.”
May 26, 2009
A live interview with Steve aired on NewsChannel 8, Washington’s 24-hour cable news outlet. Doug McKelway, co-host of “Let’s Talk Live,” explored the consequences of family secrets during a five-minute segment on the daily noon-time show. To watch the interview, click on that link and then on the story headlined “Find out what happens when family secrets escape.”
May 23, 2009
To bring to life some of the places that Steve visited during his research for Annie’s Ghosts, Kyle Norris of Michigan Public Radio did a walking tour with him through the neighborhood where Steve’s mom lived with Annie in the 1930s, and then through the last remaining building of the 75 that once housed the huge hospital complex known as Eloise, Annie’s home for 31 years. Listen to Kyle Norris’s four-minute story, “Steve Luxenberg’s Quest.”
May 16, 2009
A Washington Post review, by Barry Werth, described Annie’s Ghosts as a “probing, wise and affecting new memoir of family secrets and posthumous absolution . . . a poignant investigative exercise, full of empathy and sorrowful truth.”
May 12, 2009
WYPR-FM, the NPR affiliate in Baltimore, broadcast an hour-long interview with Steve on “Midday,” its public affairs show. Listen to host Dan Rodricks’s interview, which preceded a discussion and signing that evening at the Central Branch of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library. Steve’s Pratt talk was recorded for podcasting; a link will be posted here as soon as the podcast is available.
May 11, 2009
A review by Susan McCallum-Smith, a Baltimore writer, aired on the “Maryland Morning” show of WYPR-FM, the NPR affiliate. McCallum-Smith called Annie’s Ghosts an “engaging investigative memoir [that] proves, as the best nonfiction does, that true facts about true lives need no embellishments to be startling or moving.” Listen to her full review.
May 5, 2009
NPR's "All Things Considered" aired an eight-minute interview with Steve about Annie's Ghosts. Listen to co-host Robert Siegel's interview, and read NPR's online coverage, headlined "A Journalist Uncovers His Family's 'Ghosts'."
May 1, 2009
Library Journal names Annie’s Ghosts as one of 50 summer memoirs worth reading. “A fascinating detective story that will appeal to anyone who has ever had a family member with mental illness or had their assumptions about family tested by a secret revealed,” writes Elizabeth Brinkley in her recommendation.
March 15, 2009
The Washington Post Magazine published "The Interpreter," an excerpt from Annie's Ghosts. It tells the dramatic story of how Anna Oliwek, Steve's cousin, survived the Holocaust by posing as a German—an experience that shapes her view when she eventually learns of the family secret at the center of Annie's Ghosts.
