Emily St. John Mandel: Exit Party

Join us as Emily St. John Mandel, the award-winning author of Station Eleven, Sea of Tranquility, and The Glass Hotel, celebrates the release of her breathtaking new novel, Exit Party. Known for her genre-defying works of fiction, Mandel will explore the price of safety, the perils of the surveillance state, and resilience in the face of cataclysmic change. She’ll be joined in conversation by podcast host Greta Johnsen. Mandel’s books have been translated into 25 languages, and Station Eleven was adapted into a critically acclaimed 10-episode limited series on HBO, set and filmed in Chicago. This event is presented in partnership with Thalia Hall. Emily St. John Mandel is the author of six novels, including Sea of Tranquility, which has been translated into 25 languages and was selected by President Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of 2022; The Glass Hotel, which was also on Obama’s list, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and has been translated into 26 languages; and Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award among other honors, has been translated into 36 languages, and aired as a limited series on HBO Max. She lives in New York City and Los Angeles. Her forthcoming novel is Exit Party (Knopf, September 2026). Greta Johnsen is an interviewer, podcast host, event moderator, and book person. She co-hosts HBO's Official Game of Thrones Podcast, writes the GRETAGRAM newsletter on Substack, and is host and creator of the podcast Happy To Be Here. She also works as a program producer for Chicago Humanities. For more than a decade, she hosted WBEZ's Nerdette podcast, an interview show with a book club. She can also be heard on podcasts like Pop Culture Happy Hour and City Cast Chicago. In her free time, she likes to read as many books as possible, cook food that is only occasionally photogenic, knit squishy apparel, and hang out with her Bull Terrier, Buffy.