The Zoë Pagnamenta Agency, LLC

05/10/2022

Fascinating piece by Andrew Blum and Carey Baraka in Rest of World about a tectonic shift in how the internet works, and who controls it.

Google and Meta’s new subsea cables mark a tectonic shift in how the internet works, and who controls it.

03/16/2022

“Gardening grounds us, and gives us something to look forward to. In times of crisis, these simple qualities can offer a psychological lifeline.”

Wonderful interview with Sue Stuart-Smith, author of THE WELL-GARDENED MIND in today’s New York Times:

According to the English psychiatrist Sue Stuart-Smith, it was no accident that we had a run on seeds at the beginning of the pandemic.

02/10/2022

Great piece in The New York Times on Karen Brooks Hopkins’ memoir BAM…And Then it Hit Me. Out March 1st from powerHouse Books!

In a new memoir, the former president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music reflects on some of the organization’s most memorable stagings and artists.

01/12/2022

The UK first serial extract from Oliver Milman’s THE INSECT CRISIS: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World was published yesterday as a Guardian Long Read – the book is out from Atlantic Books on Jan 20 and from WW Norton on March 1:

The long read: The pace of global heating is forcing insect populations to move and adapt – and some aggressive species are thriving

12/15/2021

Delighted to see Vivien Schweitzer’s A MAD LOVE: An Introduction to Opera (Basic, 2018) on the New Yorker’s Best Books We Read in 2021 list.

The fiction and nonfiction, old and new, that saw us through the year.

12/07/2021

“Part of the power of names lies in our capacity to shift what they mean.”

A valuable piece about New York City’s place names by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, author of NAMES OF NEW YORK: Discovering the City’s Past, Present, and Future Through Its Place-Names (Pantheon Books).

In debates about how best to confront our collective past, we must give weight to the present as well.

11/03/2021

“The climate movement shouldn’t be seen as a movement that’s [just] specific faces, but a movement with millions of activists from different parts of the world…Every activist has a story to tell and every story has a solution to give, and every solution has a life to change.”

Vanessa Nakate spoke to Vogue about listening and amplifying the voices of activists on the frontline:

Nakate, who was cut out of an Associated Press image with four other young climate activists—all of whom were white—reflects on the incident in a new book.

11/02/2021

Happy publication day to Vanessa Nakate’s A BIGGER PICTURE: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis (Mariner Books)! An absolute must-read. “Young people realize what's at stake. Young people see the kind of future they are walking into.” Thrilled to see her featured on the cover of TIME!

10/05/2021

“In this moment of deep upheaval…community is actually opening up and saying, what a mess, and welcome to this mess, I want to be in this mess with you”

A wonderful conversation between Priya Parker, the author of THE ART OF GATHERING, and Krista Tippett on this week’s episode of the popular NPR radio show and podcast On Being.

The conflict resolution strategist and artist of gathering. Physical or virtual, reinventing the “how” of coming together — and the “why.”

08/23/2021

Listen to this fascinating conversation about THE MUSICAL CHILD: Using the Power of Music to Raise Children Who Are Happy, Healthy, and Whole, between author Joan Koenig and Trey Elling on the podcast Books on Pod.

Pioneering music educator Joan Koenig chats with Trey Elling about THE MUSICAL CHILD: USING THE POWER OF MUSIC TO RAISE CHILDREN WHO ARE HAPPY, HEALTHY, AND WHOLE. Questions include: What are some ways for parents to connect with their children musically, under the age of 1? (07:09) Regarding musica...

08/10/2021

Happy publication day to Saïd Sayrafiezadeh’s AMERICAN ESTRANGEMENT! Thrilled to see a wonderful review of his new collection in the New York Times Book Review today.

““[Sayrafiezadeh] writes with a veteran’s swagger and discipline....the collection joins a list that includes Leonard Michaels’s “I Would Have Saved Them if I Could,” Lorrie Moore’s “Like Life” and Charles D’Ambrosio’s “The Dead Fish Museum” as a second book of stories that exceeds and expands upon the promise of the first, confirming the writer as a major, committed practitioner of a difficult form.”

Saïd Sayrafiezadeh’s second story collection, “American Estrangement,” expands on the ambitions of his first.

07/29/2021

“Reading became slower and rougher for me several decades ago, when a genetic ailment made the tiny center of my right retina start to crumble delicately away. I was forty-one.”

A beautiful essay by Alice Mattison about the act of reading – and the challenges that can come with it – is up on Electric Literature:

How losing my eyesight changed how and what I enjoy reading