City Lit Books hosts a reading by Tim Murphy, author of Christodora, followed by a discussion moderated by filmmaker and journalist Kellee Terrell. The event is Thursday, Sept. 29, 6:30 p.m. at 2523 N. Kedzie, Chicago.
In Christodora, Tim Murphy follows the lives of a diverse cast of characters who reside in and around an iconic apartment building in Manhattan's East Village, the Christodora. Constructed in the 1920s, the Christodora has stood through New York City's various cultural shifts, from the AIDS epidemic to the Tompkins Square Riots of the 1980s, from the destructive effect of hard drugs to the gentrification of a beloved Manhattan neighborhood. Murphy moves kaleidoscopically through these times and into New York City in the not-too-distant future in this poignant portrait of sex, drugs, art, and activism in this ever-changing city.
Publishers Weekly called it "a vivid account of the AIDS crisis and its aftermath. … Murphy has written The Bonfire of the Vanitiesfor the age of AIDS, using the same reportorial skills as Tom Wolfe to re-create the changing decades, complete with a pitch-perfect deployment of period detail. Skipping back and forth in time over 40 years, and projecting itself into the near future, the novel achieves a powerful evocation of the plague years."
Tim Murphy has dedicated the last 20 years to reporting on HIV/AIDS. He's written on the subject for Out, Advocate, and New York Magazine, where his cover story on the new HIV-prevention pill regimen PrEP was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Magazine Journalism. He also covers LGBT issues, arts, pop culture, travel, and fashion for publications including the New York Times and Conde Nast Traveler.
Kellee Terrell is an award-winning filmmaker and journalist whose work focuses on race, feminism, HIV/AIDS, health disparities and LGBTQ issues. Her articles and interviews have been featured in Al Jazeera, BET.com, Hello Beautiful, Essence, The Root, The Grio, The Advocate, Colorlines, Positively Aware, Ebony and The Huffington Post to name a few. She is also the former news editor of TheBody.com and the former associate editor of POZ Magazine. Her two short films "Goodnight My Love" and "Blame" have screened in over 60 film festivals around the world and she was recently named a 2016 Outfest Screenwriting Fellow for her first feature script "Gemma." Follow her @kelleent.