Author Talk: 'The Yellow House'
SARAH BROOM discusses the themes of her inventive memoir, The Yellow House, and the process of reflecting on one’s life, and the lives that came before. Broom discusses her creative process, obstacles she faced far beyond writer's block, and the lessons from the past she carries into the future.
Sarah Broom’s award-winning book tells a powerful story about home and family that continues to resonate
New York Times bestselling author SARAH BROOM stunned readers and critics alike with her debut book The Yellow House, which became an instant bestseller and winner of the 2019 National Book Award in Nonfiction. Heralded as “an instantly essential text, examining the past, present and possible future of the city of New Orleans, and of America writ large” (cover review of the New York Times Book Review), Sarah’s debut continues to resonate in its power. The Yellow House has become a modern classic, and Sarah’s unparalleled voice moves audiences in every live event.
The Yellow House is a brilliant memoir about the inexorable pull of home and family, and Sarah tells “her family’s story to help make sense of Hurricane Katrina’s effects on New Orleans.” Her writing has become a touchstone by which other books can be understood (The Atlantic), and she is currently at work on her next three books with In sought-after talks, Sarah illuminates her transformative work, the creative process, and what we learn from our past that we carry forward in the story of our lives.
Sarah M. Broom is the author of the 2019 National Book Award Winner and instant New York Times bestseller The Yellow House, a brilliant, haunting and unforgettable memoir about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a shotgun house in New Orleans East. Heralded as “one of the year’s best memoirs…an urgent meditation on the American dream” (Entertainment Weekly), “a remarkable journey” (Robin Roberts, Good Morning America), and “an instantly essential text, examining the past, present and possible future of the city of New Orleans, and of America writ large” (cover review of the New York Times Book Review), Sarah’s debut has been dubbed a must-read book in over 15 publications including the LA Times, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair, NPR, and TIME.
Sarah’s previous work has appeared in the New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Oxford American, and O, The Oprah Magazine among others. A native New Orleanian, she received her Masters in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004. She was awarded a Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant in 2016 and was a finalist for the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction in 2011. She has also been awarded fellowships at Djerassi Resident Artists Program and The MacDowell Colony. She lives in New York state.