Does Real Australia live in the Canberra Bubble or in Weatherboard and Iron? Is Real America Red or Blue? In a time where binary divisions seem to define so much of our identities, is the biggest division of all between a nation’s cities and the rest? Gabrielle Chan (Rusted Off), Sarah Smarsh (Heartland) and Don Watson (The Bush) ponder the myths of a country’s heartland, and the neglected class that lives there. Chair: Ashley Hay
Sarah Smarsh has covered socioeconomic class, politics, and public policy for The Guardian, The New York Times, NewYorker.com, Harpers.org, The Texas Observer, and many others. She recently was a Joan Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. A former professor of nonfiction writing, Smarsh is a frequent speaker on economic inequality and related media narratives. She lives in Kansas. Heartland is her first book.
Read an extract from Heartland here.
