All the literary light shined bright at the 2024 Inprint Poets & Writers Ball featuring Pulitzer Prize winning author of All the Light We Cannot See,Anthony Doerr. The record-breaking evening at the River Oaks Country Club celebrated both the power of literature and Houston’s foremost literary organization and raised over half a million dollars for Inprint’s many literary performance and educational programs, as well as support for Houston-based emerging writers.
Chaired by Todd Bondy, Ky Cooksey, Stephen Goldfarb, Pablo Hernández Schmidt-Tophoff, and Cullen Schaar, who all belong to the same book club, the sold-out event treated its 450 guests to a flavorful mix of lyrical literary voices and a delicious dinner menu designed by Robert Del Grande, Chef Emeritus of The Annie Café & Bar.
Continuing a cherished Inprint Ball tradition, the evening began with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres amid salon-style readings from three former and current University of Houston Creative Writing Program graduates who have benefitted from Inprint's support. Poet and literary translator Weijia Pan read a selection of poems from his award-winning manuscript Motherlands. Novelist Gemini Wahhaj mesmerized guests with sections from her novel, The Children of This Madness, depicting an immigrant couple’s complex marriage. And Adele Elise Williams delighted the crowd with a selection of sharp and funny poems from her poetry collection Wager.
All three writers began their readings with their special thanks to Inprint for its support and told stories of how those Inprint awards and fellowships helped them to pursue and continue their writing dreams.
After dinner, Anthony Doerr took to the ballroom stage to champion the art of failure and the joy inherent in artistic creation. With a series of hilarious stories of his own times of failure — including his boyhood failed attempt at winning a Halloween costume contest as a knight dressed in poster board armor to searching and sometimes failing to find the perfect and era accurate words while editing All the Light We Cannot See — Doerr reminded guests of the fun in the failure as we learn and the joy in creating just to create.
As a thank-you gift for Ball patrons and guests, artists Fiona McGettigan and Alan Krathaus of CORE Design Studio created (with the help of a number of volunteers) a truly beautiful handmade, autographed limited-edition chapbook featuring an excerpt from Anthony Doerr’s most recent novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land. Doerr, himself, seemed overwhelmed at the art and craft that went into the chapbook’s creation.
Seen partying like a poet were Karen and Mike Brisch, Bettie Cartwright, Yini and Herman Collette, Carolyn and Platt Davis, Gwen Dawson and Ba Nguyen, Mary S and Jack Dawson, Susie and Joe Dilg, Kate Dearing Fowler, Katharine Barthelme Frank and Shane Frank, Debbie Gary, Sis and Hasty Johnson, Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen, Caroline Kerr and Andy Lusk, Sabria and Kevin Lewis, Misty and Surena Matin, Nancy Powell Moore, Franci Neely, Noelle and Eric Reed, Brittany Sakowitz and Kevin Kushner, Michelle and Rishi Varma, Marcia West, Michael Zilkha.
Photo by CJ Martin of RM Photography
Kevin Lewis, featured speaker Anthony Doerr, Franci Neely, and Inprint executive director Rich Levy.
