Hill Center is thrilled to launch a new literary series this fall in partnership with Hill Rag and East City Bookshop that will explore the practice of writing with some of Capitol Hill’s most noteworthy neighbors.

Award-winning writer, former Marine, and Hill resident, Elliot Ackerman sits down for an in-depth conversation with Dr. Michelle LaFrance, Associate Professor, Rhetoric and Writing, George Mason University and a contributing writer at Hill Rag.

Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels Halcyon, Red Dress in Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, and the memoirs The Fifth Act and Places and Names. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He is both a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He is currently a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

Michelle LaFrance (Ph.D., University of Washington, 2009) is a feminist critical ethnographer, who teaches courses on community writing, feminist methodologies, writing studies, and critical pedagogy. Michelle has published on institutional ethnography, the materialities of academic labor, e-portfolios, e-research, and writing center pedagogy. Her current work has her participating in urban communities, studying discourses of volunteerism and belonging, and treating the evolution of research practice and sensibilities in Writing Studies.

Books will be available for sale by East City Bookshop. A book signing will follow the conversation.