Author Talk: Into the Long Night: Grief, Wonder, and Life in Antarctica with Stephanie Krzywonos

Join us for an online conversation with Xicana writer Stephanie Krzywonos as she discusses The Blue Hours: My Summers and Winter in Antarctica. After six polar summers and one winter spent working on “the Ice,” Krzywonos brings a rare firsthand perspective to a place most of us will only ever imagine.

Humans have romanticized Antarctica for centuries. To Stephanie Krzywonos, Antarctica, and its well-known tragedies and hidden histories, are places to search for answers and belonging—and something larger than herself.

Hungry for the sublime and haunted over her best friend’s tragic death, Stephanie leaves her entire life behind to live in Antarctica as an ordinary worker and tests the limits of survival. Over six polar summers and one astonishing winter, Stephanie reckons with Antarctica’s complicated past alongside her own grief and desire to live—all while auroras, the moon, sunrise, and darkness itself nourish her. Throughout, Stephanie also traces the stories of female, queer, and BIPOC explorers often left out of the annals of Antarctic history to ask: Who truly belongs in Antarctica, a place that has come to symbolize despair and hope in a rapidly warming planet? And in a wounded world filled with so much loss, is healing even possible?

The Blue Hours illuminates hidden histories of life on “the Ice” and gives voice to the natives—seals and whales, ice and rock—that make up the extraordinary body of Antarctica herself.

Register now: https://libraryc.org/pasadenalibrary/261191 to step inside one of the most remote places on Earth, through the eyes of someone who lived it.

For accessibility information and requests, contact Shauna Redmond (sredmond@cityofpasadena.net / 626-744-4210). Providing at least 72 hours advance notice will help ensure availability.