Pulitzer on the Road: Natasha Trethewey & Lucy Sante in Conversation

Saturday, March 7, 3:20 p.m. to 4:35 p.m. ET
Ballroom II, Baltimore Convention Center, Level 400

A conversation on memoir and autobiographical writing between two authors known for their work across multiple literary genres: two-time US Poet Laureate, and Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and nonfiction writer, Natasha Trethewey, and renowned cultural critic, chronicler of subcultural life, and Pulitzer Prize finalist for Memoir in 2025, Lucy Sante. The authors explore how works rooted in personal experience can connect to larger narratives of race, historical erasure, gender, queerness, and class.

Panelist Bios:

Natasha Trethewey served two terms as the US Poet Laureate (2012–2014). She is the author of five poetry collections, including Native Guard (2006)—for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize—and Monument: Poems New and Selected (2018); a book of nonfiction, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2010); a memoir, Memorial Drive (2020), an instant New York Times bestseller; and The House of Being (2024), a meditation on writing. She has received numerous fellowships and awards. A Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets, she has also served on the boards of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Hollins University, and, currently, the Pulitzer Prize. At Northwestern University she is Board of Trustees Professor of English.

Photo Credit: Nancy Crampton



Lucy Sante is the author of Low Life, Evidence, The Factory of Facts, Kill All Your Darlings, Folk Photography, The Other Paris, Maybe the People Would Be the Times, and Nineteen Reservoirs. Her memoir, I Heard Her Call My Name, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and was named a best book of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Slate. Her awards include a Whiting Writers Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Grammy Award (for album notes), an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, and Guggenheim and Cullman Center fellowships. She recently retired after twenty-four years of teaching at Bard College.