Reading / Q&A with Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman | Department of English

Reading / Q&A with Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman

Event Information
Event Date: 
Thursday, February 28, 2019 - 6:30pm
Location: 
Business Leadership Building, Room 015

Join us for a unique reading and discussion with our own alumna Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, whose creative nonfiction dissertation, Sounds Like Titanic, was written here at UNT and accepted for publication by Norton. Jessica will read from her memoir and then we will have a conversation about the process of writing her dissertation, revising it, and getting it accepted and promoted by a major publisher -- and the journey since then. Don't miss what we hope will be an inspiring and useful event.

"When aspiring violinist Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman lands a job with a professional ensemble in New York City, she imagines she has achieved her lifelong dream. But the ensemble proves to be a sham. When the group "performs," the microphones are never on. Instead, the music blares from a CD. The mastermind behind this scheme is a peculiar and mysterious figure known as The Composer, who is gaslighting his audiences with music that sounds suspiciously like the Titanic movie soundtrack. On tour with his chaotic ensemble, Hindman spirals into crises of identity and disillusionment as she "plays" for audiences genuinely moved by the performance, unable to differentiate real from fake." -Goodreads

Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman is the author of Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir (W.W. Norton, February 2019). Her recent writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, McSweeney's, Brevity and Hippocampus. She holds a BA in Middle Eastern Studies and a MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University, and a PhD in English from the University of North Texas. She teaches creative writing at Northern Kentucky University, where she recently won the Outstanding Junior Faculty Award.

Jessica was recently featured on NPR's Morning Edition! Listen here: https://www.npr.org/2019/02/09/692955821/a-fake-orchestra-performance-in...

Press:

W.W. Norton: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294997564