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2 • COGNOTES MAY 2015 PREVIEW

Haifaa al-Mansour, Award-Winning Saudi Arabian Director and Screenwriter to Highlight Saturday Auditorium Speakers

Award-winning Saudi Arabian film director and screenwriter Haifaa al-Mansour — outspoken, smart, and media-savvy — adds ALA to a long list of high-profile appearances, including being interviewed by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” and Dave Eggers for McSweeney's journal Wholphin. Al-Mansour joins the 2015 Annual Conference Auditorium Speaker series on Saturday, June 27, 10:30 - 11:30 a.m. Winner of an EDA Female Focus Award, al-Mansour's first feature-length film “Wadjda” also won the Best International Feature Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival, among other awards, and is the first feature-length movie filmed entirely in Saudi Arabia, the first feature filmed by a female Saudi Arabian director, and the first Saudi Arabian film submitted for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

The film is the basis of al-Mansour's middle-grade (and debut) novel The Green Bicycle, about a spunky and sly eleven-year-old living in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, who constantly pushes the boundaries of what's considered proper — going out without a headscarf, wearing Converse sneakers to school, and speaking with boys in public places. The story of her attempt to get a bicycle, considered improper for girls to ride, unfolds against the shifting social attitudes of the Middle East, and explores gender roles, conformity, and the importance of family with warmth, spirit, and humor.

The daughter of a poet, al-Mansour studied comparative literature in Cairo and later attended film school in Australia. Her 2005 documentary “Women Without Shadows” speaks to the hidden lives of women in Arab States of the Persian Gulf and was shown at 17 international festivals, received the Golden

Dagger for Best Documentary in the Muscat Film Festival, and got a special jury mention in the fourth Arab Film Festival in Rotterdam. Her next film, “A Storm in the Stars,” about Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and starring Elle Fanning, is set to release in 2016.

Al-Mansour's appearance is sponsored by Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers.

Haifaa al-Mansour

Kaplan

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Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and an adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School, and is currently litigating the case against Mississippi's gay marriage ban. Selected as one of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers,” as well as a 2013 “Litigator of the Year” by The American Lawyer, the 2013 “Lawyer of the Year” by Above The Law and the 2014 “Most Innovative Lawyer of The Year” by The Financial Times, she was ranked as number five in this year's “Politico 50.”

Kaplan's appearance at ALA Annual Conference is sponsored by W. W. Norton & Company, (booth # 1119 in the Exhibit Hall). Her presentation is part of the conference's Opening General Session, where ALA President Courtney Young and others welcome attendees and set the stage for the Annual Conference.

President's Program

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of success and mastery, is it actually our near wins that push us forward and our failures that become the process?

“Embrace the Near Win” was selected as one of TED Talks’ 2014 Collection of the Most Powerful Talks. In it, as in her acclaimed debut book The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure and the Search for Mastery, she urges her audience to consider the role of the almost-failure in our own lives. “Coming close to what you thought you wanted can help you attain what you never dreamed you could,” she said. “Completion is a goal, but we hope it is never the end.” She came to understand that what really motivates us is “the unfinished” and that mastery is in the reaching rather than the arriving when, at her first museum job, she noticed that not every work by an artist she was studying was a total masterpiece. The Rise was described by the New York Times as “strikingly original.”

Lewis has served on President Obama's Arts Policy Committee, been selected for Oprah's “Power List,” and is a Du Bois Fellow at Harvard University. She is also an active curator, having held positions at both the Tate Modern and The Museum of Modern Art. Her writing on contemporary art has been published extensively, and her fresh perspectives on the dialogue between culture, history, and identity have made her central to these conversations. “Sarah Lewis is applying her turbocharged intellect to bridging the gap between art and social policy,” said Vogue magazine.

Lewis's appearance is sponsored by Simon & Schuster. The ALA President's Program will be preceded by the ALA Awards Presentation, 3:00 - 3:30 p.m. (Note the new time for this program in 2015).

Celebrating Pride at 2015 ALA Annual Conference

Events and programs that cover a wide range of diversity and equality issues and celebrations are offered throughout the Annual Conference, and as part of that, we are proud to be in San Francisco for Pride Week and to echo their “Equality without Exception” focus. Around 100 Annual Conference attendees will join the San Francisco Public Library to march in the Pride Parade on Sunday. Here is a snapshot of some other events and programs of interest.

Roberta A. Kaplan, the litigator who helped invalidate a key section of DOMA, will join ALA on the second anniversary of the historic Supreme Court ruling at the Opening General Session, Friday at 4:00 p.m. (see story page 1).

There is a special GLBT Pavilion in the Exhibits, where you will find the latest titles and authors from GLBT publishers, Friday — Monday.

“Show Your Pride” Sunday in the Exhibits includes a day of celebrations starting with coffee and snacks, and special giveaways, signings, and ARCs throughout the day.

ALA GLBT Book Month™, wrapping up the first June that this nationwide celebration is sponsored by ALA. Look for a special event in the Exhibit Hall and commemorative poster/bookmark in the ALA Store.

”Rolling out the Rainbow Carpet: Serving LGBT Communities,” GLBTRT Preconference Friday June 26.

GLBTRT social, Saturday 6:30 p.m., Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch of the San Francisco Public Library.

Stonewall Book Awards Program, Monday 10:00 a.m., celebrating the very best in GLBT literature (free event with book signing to follow).

Gloria Steinem (Photo © Tom Marks)

Gloria Steinem, Legendary Feminist Activist to Speak on Saturday

Gloria Steinem — writer, lecturer, editor, journalist, social and political activist, and self-described “hope-aholic” — will appear as Auditorium Speaker on Saturday, June 27, 8:30 — 9:30 a.m. Steinem became nationally recognized as a leader and spokeswoman for the feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 70s. The path that led her there included a challenging childhood and a short stint as a Playboy Bunny.

After helping found New York magazine in 1968, where she was a political columnist and wrote feature articles, Steinem co-founded Ms. Magazine in 1972, and remained one of its editors for 15 years. In 2005, Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Robin Morgan co-founded the Women's Media Center, an organization that works “to make women visible and powerful in the media.” Steinem currently travels internationally as an organizer and lecturer and is a media spokeswoman on issues of equality. Her books include the bestsellers Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Moving Beyond Words, and Marilyn: Norma Jean, on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Her forthcoming book Diary of a Nomad: My Life on the Road (her first in 20 years and with all new material, October 2015) is an inspiring, intimate memoir that tells her whole life story.

Steinem's numerous awards include the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards, National Magazine awards, an Emmy Citation for excellence in television writing, the Women's Sports Journalism Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations, and in 2013, the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. Her appearance at ALA Annual Conference is sponsored by Penguin Random House.