Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program alum Emily Mester will read from her essay collection, American Bulk. In these essays, Mester explores her relationship with consumer culture – the scarcity mindset of Costco, what Olive Garden says about taste and class, finding fraught solidarity at fat camp, the ascent of consumer review culture and its subsequent descent into a cop-like surveillance state. American Bulk explores the complicated relationship between Mester’s father, a compulsive shopper, and his mother, a hoarder, and herself, a softer version of both. Culminating with a visit to her grandmother’s abandoned house in Storm Lake, Iowa, American Bulk walks the line between humor and despair, critique and generosity.   “With compassion, wit, and piercing honesty, Emily Mester delves into our love of consumerism―and what our desires say about who we want to become. Bravely personal, incisively critical, American Bulk is a report on our national psyche and a captivating family story.” ― Larissa Pham
Emily Mester is a writer from the suburban Midwest, where her family went to Costco every Sunday. She holds an MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa, where she was the winner of the Prairie Lights Nonfiction Prize. She lives in New York.