Parallel Stories is a literary and performing arts series that pairs art and artists with award-winning authors and performers of regional, national, and international acclaim. This series functions as a multidisciplinary lens through which to view the Museum’s collection and special exhibitions.Prize-winning, globally-admired poet Adam Zagajewski writes with precision and wonder about the calm and courage of ordinary life. He says of poetry that it “is like a human face — it is an object that can be measured, described, catalogued, but it is also an appeal.” His most recent book, Slight Exaggeration, is a blend of memoir, essay, and anecdote, and in which he defines poetry as “a slight exaggeration, until we make ourselves at home in it. Then it becomes the truth.” Zagajewski is interviewed by fellow writer, friend, novelist, and Chair of the UC Riverside writing program Andrew Winer. Book signing to follow.

In his latest book, award-winning, multi-talented author, essayist, and critic Geoff Dyer shares his unorthodox insights and eye-opening responses to 100 images — both iconic and hitherto unseen — by photographer Garry Winogrand, selected from the archive at the Center for Creative Photography. Come along on this wildly original journey in the company of Dyer, whose observations, idiosyncratic energy, and clear-sighted vision animate anew Winogrand’s work. This latest book, hailed as “an inimitable combination of photographer and writer, images and text,” serves as a kind of verbal portrait of Winogrand, but perhaps says as much about the author as it does his subject. Book signing to follow.