Home Bound: Author Vanessa A. Bee in conversation with Melanie Hoffert

4047 Minnehaha Avenue,Minneapolis MN 55406

10 November, 2022

Description

Join us at All Square on Thursday, Nov. 10 at 7:00 pm for a thoughtful fall evening of literary reflection featuring D.C. based author Vanessa A. Bee and her memoir, HOME BOUND: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belonging. Vanessa will be in conversation with author Melanie Hoffert. This event is co-hosted by Moon Palace Books. Complementary grilled cheese and beverages will be provided.Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event .A signing will follow the reading & conversation.All guests must be vaccinated to attend. About HOME BOUND In this singular and intimate memoir of identity and discovery, Vanessa A. Bee explores the way we define “home” and “belonging” — from her birth in Yaoundé, Cameroon, to her adoption by her aunt and her aunt’s white French husband, to experiencing housing insecurity in Europe and her eventual immigration to the United States. After her parents’ divorce, Vanessa traveled with her mother to Lyon and later to London, eventually settling in Reno, Nevada, as a teenager, right around the financial crisis and the collapse of the housing market. At twenty, still a practicing evangelical Christian and newly married, Vanessa applied to and was accepted by Harvard Law School, where she was one of the youngest members of her class. There, she forged a new belief system, divorced her husband, left the church, and, inspired by her tumultuous childhood, pursued a career in economic justice upon graduation. Vanessa’s adoptive, multiracial, multilingual, multinational, and transcontinental upbringing has caused her to grapple for years with foundational questions such as: What is home? Is it the country we’re born in, the body we possess, or the name we were given and that identifies us? Is it the house we remember most fondly, the social status assigned to us, or the ideology we forge? What defines us and makes us uniquely who we are? Organized unconventionally around her own dictionary-style definitions of the word “home,” Vanessa tackles these timeless questions thematically and unpacks the many layers that contribute to and condition our understanding of ourselves and of our place in the world. About the Authors Vanessa A. Bee is a consumer protection lawyer and essayist. Born in Cameroon, she grew up in France, England, and the United States. Vanessa holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Nevada and a law degree from Harvard. She lives in Washington, DC. Follow @Vanessa_ABee on Twitter and @TheHomeBoundBook on Instagram. Melanie Hoffert is the author of PRAIRIE SILENCE: A Rural Expatriates Journey to Reconcile Love, Home, and Faith. Melanie has been published in numerous publications, garnering several creative non-fiction awards, and has most recently shifted her focus from writing about the prairie to lakes. She is chipping away at her memoir-in-progress, WATERLAND.