Poets & Writers is hosting an online conversation between Karen Russell and Brian Gesko about her new book, The Antidote, which “examines a dark chapter of America’s past, but not without hope for the future.”

This free virtual event will take place on March 10, 2025, at 7 PM EDT.

Per Kevin Larimer, editor-in-chief of Poets & Writers Magazine:

In “Of Dust and Dreams,” a profile of the author in the March/April 2025 issue, Gresko explores Russell’s sixteen-year process of developing and writing her new novel, The Antidote, which opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, and follows a “prairie witch,” whose body serves as a vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his niece, player-captain of a high school basketball team who tries to learn to become a prairie witch; a scarecrow; and a photographer in possession of a time-traveling camera. 

In this virtual event, Russell will read from the new novel and discuss with Gresko the years of Dust Bowl research that went into the book, the competing histories of the so-called American Dream of westward expansion that The Antidote confronts, and the realization that we all have lives that are connected at the roots.

You can find out more about the event here. And you can register here.