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Gabrielle Zevin

New York Times-bestselling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

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  • About Gabrielle Zevin

    Gabrielle Zevin is an award-winning, internationally-bestselling writer whose books have been translated into over 40 languages. Her latest book, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was an instant New York Times bestseller, Sunday Times Best Seller, a USA Today Best Seller, a #1 National Indie Best Seller, and was selected for The Tonight Show’s Fallon Book Club. Amazon named Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow it’s #1 Book of 2022, writing “After reading your heart will swell, you’ll walk with a bounce in your step, and you’ll be reminded how buzzy the feeling of connection can be.” In this novel that explores the intimacy of creativity and gaming, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as partners in the world of video game design. As their careers bloom, they navigate the fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, immortality that accompanies their success.

    Hailed as a “tour de force” by Ron Charles of the Washington Post, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow has found both critical and commercial success. Barnes and Noble booksellers selected it as a “Best Book of 2022,” and the film rights to the novel were acquired by Temple Hill and Paramount Studios following a twenty-five-bidder auction, with Zevin currently writing the screenplay.

    At her events, Gabrielle Zevin talks about the inspiration behind her hit books, from her memories of a local bookstore to her experience as “literary gamer.” With humor, heart, and her remarkable writing talent, her talks are perfect for any audience searching for inspiration on the craft and comradeship in a love of reading.

    Among Gabrielle Zevin’s prior novels are Young Jane Young, a winner of the Southern Book Prize, Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction, and Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of 2017, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, a  love letter to the idea of a local bookstore. A fan favorite and New York Times bestseller that has sold over 5 million copies worldwide, A.J. Fikry won the Southern California Independent Booksellers Award and the Japan Booksellers’ Award, among other honors that include the #1 Indie Next Pick, #1 Library Reads Pick, and Library Journal “Top Ten Book of the Year.” In 2022, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry was adapted into a major motion picture starring Kunal Nayyar and Lucy Hale.

    Gabrielle Zevin began her writing career at age fourteen as a music critic for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. She is the screenwriter of Conversations with Other Women (starring Aaron Echkart and Helena Bonham Carter), for which she received an Independent Spirit Award Nomination for Best First Screenplay. She has also written criticism for the New York Times Book Review and NPR’s All Things Considered. Zevin is a graduate of Harvard University, and currently lives in Los Angeles.

    Contact us to learn more about bringing Gabrielle Zevin to your organization.

  • Speaking Topics

    Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: Video Games as a Storytelling Form and the Revelatory Nature of Play

    Today, everyone games: whether it’s Wordle or a crossword puzzle or Fantasy Football or just using Instagram (which is very much a game!), humans are naturally playful. Play is deeply important—and healing—for all ages. Virtual worlds can be as important as real ones, and games serve as a way for people to connect. Video games have now been with us for a while; the first generation of gamers to play as children (“the Oregon Trail generation”) were born in the late 1970s and 1980s. How have video games shaped their expectations of storytelling and even life itself? Zevin explores the effect that video games and play have had on storytelling and shares how her experiencing with gaming and computers led to writing Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

    Imagining Others: On Empathy and How to Write Character

    Gabrielle Zevin brings audiences into the evolution of her process for writing characters, asking, what are the limitations of empathy in real life and how is it important in conceiving imaginary people? She also addresses how her biracial identity has influenced her approach to creating the beloved characters in A.J. Fikry and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

    A.J. Fikry and the Importance of Bookstores, Libraries, and Community

    Gabrielle Zevin believes that children who read grow up into adults you want to know. Her own lifelong relationship with reading and independent bookstores inspired her to start a writing career and ultimately write The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. In this talk, she addresses the importance of childhood reading and to places like bookstores and libraries (and people like booksellers and librarians) to the life of a town, using passages from A.J. Fikry to illustrate her points. This talk can also include insight into the process of turning The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry into a film.

  • Video

  • Praise for Gabrielle Zevin

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    Gabrielle was a wonderful speaker! We received a lot of positive feedback from our audience, her talk was engaging and fun and thoughtfully put together.

    Seattle Arts & Lectures
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    Gabrielle delivered a smart, captivating presentation and our attendees seemed very pleased with the program.

    The Cabin
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    Gabrielle Zevin was beyond wonderful. Her talk was funny, poignant, and engaging and really connected with our community. She was also a joy to spend time with!

    Literary Arts, Inc.
    FacebookTwitterEmailLinkedIn

    Gabrielle was a wonderful speaker! We received a lot of positive feedback from our audience, her talk was engaging and fun and thoughtfully put together.

    Seattle Arts & Lectures
    FacebookTwitterEmailLinkedIn

    Gabrielle Zevin was beyond wonderful. Her talk was funny, poignant, and engaging and really connected with our community.

    Literary Arts, Inc.

    Praise for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

    Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a beautifully wrought saga of human connection and the creative process, of love and all of its complicated levels. A gem of a novel, intimate yet sweeping, modern yet timeless. Bits of this book lingered in my head the way ghosts of Tetris pieces continue to fall in your mind’s eye after playing.

    Erin Morgenstern, author of The Starless Sea

    Whatever its subject, when a novel is powerful enough, it transports us readers deep into worlds not our own. That’s true of Moby Dick, and it’s certainly true of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which renders the process of designing a great video game as enthralling as the pursuit of that great white whale….There are…smart ruminations here about cultural appropriation, given that the game, Ichigo, is inspired by Japanese artist Hokusai’s famous painting The Great Wave at Kanagawa….It’s a big, beautifully written novel about an underexplored topic, that succeeds in being both serious art and immersive entertainment.

    Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air

    A tour de force… A moving demonstration of the blended power of fiction and gaming….Zevin describes herself as ‘a lifelong gamer.’ That level of experience could very well have produced a story of hermetically sealed nostalgia impenetrable to anyone who doesn’t still own a copy of ‘Space Invaders.’ But instead, she’s written a novel that draws any curious reader into the pioneering days of a vast entertainment industry too often scorned by bookworms. And with the depth and sensitivity of a fine fiction writer, she argues for the abiding appeal of the flickering screen.

    Ron Charles, The Washington Post

    Praise for Young Jane Young

    [T]his is a redemptive novel inspired by the ordeal of Monica Lewinsky…. [T]he last thing anyone wants is to be dragged through the Starr Report again, one cigar at a time. Which is what makes Zevin’s clever approach to this story so appealing. Her novel comes to us in five distinct parts, each focusing on a different woman affected by Avivagate. That structure rotates the scandal in curious ways, and it also shows off just what a clever ventriloquist Zevin is…. Maybe with enough determination and love and support, women can choose their own adventures. They can start, like Aviva, by choosing not to be ashamed. In this life-affirming novel, Zevin doesn’t make that look easy, but she makes it look possible.

    The Washington Pos

    This book will not only thoroughly entertain everyone who reads it; it is the most immaculate takedown of slut-shaming in literature or anywhere else. Cheers, and gratitude, to the author.

    Kirkus Reviews, starred

    Praise for The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

    A love letter to the joys of reading.

    NPR

    …a powerful novel about the power of novels, but there is nothing outsize or metatextual about it, no cloying literary in-jokes or philosophical digressions: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is a book for people who love books, who recognize a story well-told for what it is, and for the power it contains.

    The Toronto Globe and Mail

    Praise for The Hole We’re In

    Zevin delivers in her blazing second adult novel a Corrections for our recessionary times….Zevin mixes sharp humor with moments of grace as she gives readers terrific insights into the problems of adult children removing themselves from the influence of parents, and establishes herself as an astute chronicler of the way we spend now.

    Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

    Zevin’s writing is often surprisingly, if darkly, funny, thanks to her wry and astute cultural observations….[Main character] Patsy is flawed like the rest of her family, but she also has complex thoughts and tries to live without hypocrisy….Her experiences in Iraq have left her scarred and jittery, but she has too much bravado to wallow in self-pity. Zevin breathes real life into this tough-girl vet, a heroine for our times, recognizable from life but new to fiction.

    The New York Times Book Review

    Praise for Elsewhere

    Every so often a book comes along with a premise so fresh and arresting it seems to exist in a category all its own. “Elsewhere,” by Gabrielle Zevin, is such a book. Zevin’s touch is marvelously light even as she considers profundities, easily moving among humor, wisdom and lyricism… No plot synopsis can convey what a rich, wise spell this book casts.

    The New York Times Book Review
  • Books by Gabrielle Zevin

  • Media About Gabrielle Zevin

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  • Gabrielle Zevin travels from Los Angeles, CA

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