“Is Nonfiction Dead?”: Answers to Burning Questions from the Publishing Post-Apocalypse

Event details Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2026 Time: 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM Location: Taper Hall (THH) - 309K - 3501 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089 Type: Lecture / Talk / Workshop Campus: University Park Campus Department: Society of Fellows, English Audience: Students, Alumni, Faculty/Staff About this event Please join the USC Society of Fellows in the Humanities for a guest lecture by Zach Phillips. Organized in partnership with the Department of English, the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Consortium for Gender, Sexuality, Race and Public Culture. Description: Is it true that nothing is selling these days? What is a platform, and where can I get one? Should I hire an outside publicist? Does going trade mean “dumbing down” my research for the layreader? An editor from Penguin Random House has gathered some of the most common questions asked by scholars on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and he comes to you now with answers. Zach Phillips is an editor at Pantheon, where he specializes in narrative nonfiction, history, biography, and memoir, as well as some literary fiction and graphic nonfiction and novels. He is especially interested in progressive politics, forgotten histories, investigative reportage, and queer firebrands. Some of his recent and forthcoming titles are Nicked by National Book Award-winner M. T. Anderson; Health and Safety by Emily Witt, which won the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize; Trauma Plot by Jamie Hood; Ginseng Roots by Eisner and Ignatz Prize-winner Craig Thompson; Queen Mother by Whiting Award-winning historian Ashley D. Farmer; How Bright the Path Grows by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Marcia Chatelain, and Basic Pistol by Harel Shapira. Official event details: https://calendar.usc.edu/event/is-nonfiction-dead-answers-to-burning-questions-from-the-publishing-post-apocalypse