House Of SpeakEasy

House Of SpeakEasy On Stage. In Schools. On the Road. House of SpeakEasy connects authors and audiences in innovative and sustaining ways.

House of SpeakEasy is grounded in the belief that the ability to read and write enables a person to know their rights, to be confident in their identity, and engage boldly and empathetically with the world around them. Founded in 2013 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, SpeakEasy is dedicated to the idea that literature matters, and that the essence of literary culture is the relationship between writers and their readers. To foster that relationship, SpeakEasy seeks to: 1) bring authors out from behind the book into direct contact with audiences; 2) ensure that writers are compensated for their work and time; and 3) stimulate the audiences of tomorrow by exposing them to the best writing of today. SpeakEasy provides literary programming to students and communities in underserved communities and delivers literature to "book deserts," areas deprived of bookstores and without access to libraries, via a mobile book truck.

Meet author Nathalie Alonso and illustrator John Parra of Viva Venezuala! for a book giveaway, reading, and art activiti...
09/25/2026

Meet author Nathalie Alonso and illustrator John Parra of Viva Venezuala! for a book giveaway, reading, and art activities. October 3rd, 1:00pm, 31st Avenue Open Streets.

In collaboration with Astoria Bookshop and Tiffany Caban's District 22 office, House of SpeakEasy's Bookmobile will host a literacy event to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month at 31st Ave Open Street. The event will include a book giveaway, reading, and related literacy and art-making activities for the book Viva Valenzuela! with author Nathalie Alonso and illustrator John Parra. House of SpeakEasy's Bookmobile will also be there to distribute new free books to the community!

Join us! Registration at EventBrite.

09/25/2026

House of SpeakEasy and The New Yorker return to Joe’s Pub for another Seriously Entertaining collaboration, celebrating the release of "The New Yorker: From Cover to Cover", the definitive presentation of the world’s most popular and evocative magazine covers.

Featuring Barry Blitt, Grace Lynne Haynes, Anita Kunz, and Ricardo Siri, with James Yang as quizmaster, and co-hosted by House of SpeakEasy co-founder and chairwoman Amanda Foreman and Françoise Mouly, art editor of The New Yorker and author of "The New Yorker: From Cover to Cover". Ticket link in bio.

On Sunday, September 27, Sejahari Saulter-Villegas, Director/Playwright/Actor and Poet joins us at 3:30 p.m. at Brooklyn...
09/22/2026

On Sunday, September 27, Sejahari Saulter-Villegas, Director/Playwright/Actor and Poet joins us at 3:30 p.m. at Brooklyn Borough Hall, on the North End of the festival grounds.

Copies of his zine, "The World is Burning & I Want to Become a Pop Star" will be available for purchase on-site at the House of SpeakEasy Bookmobile.

📍 Brooklyn Borough Hall, Johnson Street, North End of the Festival
🕜 3:30 PM — Book Signing

Saulter-Villegas

Please join us at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, September 27, to meet a wonderful group of talented writers and ...
09/22/2026

Please join us at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, September 27, to meet a wonderful group of talented writers and purchase signed books. All starting with Author Clock at 10:00am.

Joining us are André Aciman, Beejhy Barhany, Bill Buford, Jon Burgerman, Ava Chin, Don P Hooper, Peter Godwin, Michael Riedel, Sejahari Saulter-Villegas, Vijay Seshadri, Margot Singer, Vicky Ward, Caroline Weber, and Mikhail Zygar.

09/03/2026

What could add pressure to performing for Ruth Bader Ginsburg? A last-minute call from mom you that you left the most important person out of your play…

In her full Seriously Entertaining performance, Heidi Schreck reveals the figure she accidentally left out of her celebrated play “What the Constitution Means to Me,” and offers a moving tribute to the “invisible work of fighting back.”

Recorded live at Seriously Entertaining: “We the People,” presented by House of SpeakEasy in collaboration with Library of America.

“I believe that sometimes fantasy and reality can come together—and sometimes you have to go outside of the realm of rea...
09/02/2026

“I believe that sometimes fantasy and reality can come together—and sometimes you have to go outside of the realm of reality to show people what could possibly exist and how they can shape their identity in a new way that society has not shown them yet,” says Grace Lynne Haynes (Grace Lynne Haynes).

Haynes is an American visual artist whose work seeks to represent women of color and their sublimity—those both young and old, and those from both history and the present. Her distinctive style—the use of collaged eyes, striking colors, and pitch-black skin tones—has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions and, notably, on multiple editions of The New Yorker (The New Yorker).

On October 6, House of SpeakEasy and The New Yorker return to Joe's Pub for another Seriously Entertaining collaboration, celebrating the release of “The New Yorker: From Cover to Cover,” the definitive presentation of the world’s most popular and evocative magazine covers. Featuring Grace Lynne Haynes, alongside Barry Blitt, Anita Kunz, and Ricardo Siri, with James Yang (James Yang) as quizmaster, and co-hosted by House of SpeakEasy co-founder and chairwoman Amanda Foreman (Amanda Foreman - Historian) and Françoise Mouly (Francoise Mouly), art editor of The New Yorker and author of “The New Yorker: From Cover to Cover,” published by Rizzoli Publications.

🎟️ Limited seats available, get your tickets today at the link in our bio.

09/01/2026

ZZ Packer (ZZ Packer) shares an unconventional writing exercise…

In her full Seriously Entertaining performance, ZZ Packer shows us why the dramatization of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the TV show “Girls” isn’t nearly dramatic enough, and how she learned that being a great writer is about more than copying The New Yorker’s (The New Yorker) punctuation style.

Filmed at “Seriously Celebrating The New Yorker’s 100th Anniversary: Fiction” at Joe’s Pub, September 2, 2025.

“I like to make myself laugh. When I’m just sitting with a sketchbook and trying to make myself laugh or trying to come ...
09/01/2026

“I like to make myself laugh. When I’m just sitting with a sketchbook and trying to make myself laugh or trying to come up with ideas, I try not to worry about aim right away. I’m just sort of shooting in all directions,” says cartoonist and illustrator Barry Blitt.

Easily recognizable by his use of traditional pen and ink and watercolors, Blitt has contributed drawings to The New Yorker (The New Yorker), the New York Times (The New York Times), the New York Observer, and many others since he moved to America from Canada in the early 1990s.

Blitt describes his enduring career as “contributing fussy little drawings to countless publications for what seems like years”—including over 100 covers and counting for The New Yorker.

On October 6, House of SpeakEasy and The New Yorker return to Joe's Pub for another Seriously Entertaining collaboration, celebrating the release of “The New Yorker: From Cover to Cover,” the definitive presentation of the world’s most popular and evocative magazine covers. Featuring Barry Blitt alongside Grace Lynne Haynes (Grace Lynne Haynes), Anita Kunz (Anita Kunz), and Ricardo Siri (Liniers), and co-hosted by House of SpeakEasy co-founder Amanda Foreman (Amanda Foreman - Historian) and Françoise Mouly (Francoise Mouly), art editor of The New Yorker and author of The New Yorker: From Cover to Cover, published by Rizzoli Publications.

🎟️ Tickets on sale now at the link in our bio.

We took our “We the People” Bookmobile on a 27 day tour, tracing the geography of the American experiment through all 13...
08/28/2026

We took our “We the People” Bookmobile on a 27 day tour, tracing the geography of the American experiment through all 13 original colonies. 🚚🇺🇸

Swipe to discover the highlights from our journey, shared by the writers and historians who helped shape this tour—along with insights from our Bookmobile Manager, Don Geci.

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