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Author Talk: Stephanie Krzywonos

Into the Long Night: Grief, Wonder, and Life in Antarctica

Join us for an online conversation with Xicana writer Stephanie Krzywonos as she discusses The Blue Hours: My Summers and Winter in Antarctica.

Join us for an online conversation with Xicana writer Stephanie Krzywonos as she discusses The Blue Hours: My Summers and Winter in Antarctica. After six polar summers and one winter spent working on “the Ice,” Krzywonos brings a rare firsthand perspective to a place most of us will only ever imagine. 

Humans have romanticized Antarctica for centuries. To Stephanie Krzywonos, Antarctica, and its well-known tragedies and hidden histories, are places to search for answers and belonging—and something larger than herself.

Hungry for the sublime and haunted over her best friend’s tragic death, Stephanie leaves her entire life behind to live in Antarctica as an ordinary worker and tests the limits of survival.

Over six polar summers and one astonishing winter, Stephanie reckons with Antarctica’s complicated past alongside her own grief and desire to live—all while auroras, the moon, sunrise, and darkness itself nourish her. Throughout, Stephanie also traces the stories of female, queer, and BIPOC explorers often left out of the annals of Antarctic history to ask: Who truly belongs in Antarctica, a place that has come to symbolize despair and hope in a rapidly warming planet? And in a wounded world filled with so much loss, is healing even possible?

The Blue Hours illuminates hidden histories of life on “the Ice” and gives voice to the natives—seals and whales, ice and rock—that make up the extraordinary body of Antarctica herself.

Register now to step inside one of the most remote places on Earth, through the eyes of someone who lived it.

About the Author: 

Stephanie Krzywonos (she/her) is the author of The Blue Hours: My Summers and Winter in Antarctica, which Kirkus called "an electrifyingly original memoir of life in the extreme." Ed Yong, the New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World, described The Blue Hours as "so haunting, formidable, and transportive that it's almost impossible to believe that this masterpiece of a book is [Stephanie's] debut." In 2015, Stephanie left everything behind to live and work at McMurdo Station in Antarctica for seven seasons as she searched for healing and redemption after the tragic death of her best friend. Her book is a kaleidoscopic blend of memoir, science, and criticism with the stories of other marginalized polar explorers who sought life's deepest meanings in the coldest, most remote landscapes on Earth. Stephanie's work on The Blue Hours was supported by organizations like Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, and more. Her writing has appeared in publications like Orion Magazine, Emergence Magazine, Sierra, and more. She holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa and now lives in Michigan. 

The views expressed by presenters are their own and their appearance in a program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Orange County Library System.