Tuesday, May 17

Naptime in the City That Never Sleeps: A Conversation About Parenting in New York

Lenore Skenazy is founder of the book, blog and movement, Free-Range Kids (www.freerangekids.com), which launched the anti-helicopter parenting movement. A frequent guest on talk shows, she speaks internationally and has written for everyone from the Washington Post to Mad Magazine. Yep. The Mad Magazine. She also invented, "Take Our Children to the Park...And Leave Them There Day," which is coming up May 21. In January she will host a new reality show about Free-Range parenting.

Steven Mintz is a Columbia University history professor and author of Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood and Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life.  He is the president of the Society for the History of Children and Youth and the former national chair of the Council on Contemporary Families.  Frequently quoted in major publications, including the New York Times and USA Today, Mintz has also appeared on CBS News and NPR.

Lisa Belkin (moderator) covers life, work, families and parenting for the New York Times in the "Motherlode" Blog. A long-time contributing writer, she has also been the paper's "Life's Work" columnist and a reporter on the National, Metro and Business and Style desks. The author of three books, including Life's Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom, her own personal "Motherlode" is her husband, two teenage sons and one dog who seems to think he's her baby.

Tuesday, May 24

Childhood Memories and Grown-Up Dreams

Alan Berliner is one of America's most acclaimed independent filmmakers. According to the New York Times, "Alan Berliner illustrates the power of fine art to transform life." Berliner's films include Intimate Stranger, Nobody's Business, and Wide Awake. He is a recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Jerome Foundation Fellowships; multiple grants from the NEA, NYSCA, and NYFA; and three Emmy Awards. His films are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Jonathan Marc Sherman (playwright) His plays include Things We Want, Sophistry, Veins and Thumbtacks, Evolution, Sons and Fathers, Jesus on the Oil Tank, Serendipity and Serenity, Wonderful Time, and Women and Wallace. They have been performed at Malaparte Theatre Company (which he co-founded), The New Group, Playwrights Horizons, WPA Theater, Los Angeles Theatre Center, and the Williamstown Theater Festival, as well as in England, Australia, Israel, and Japan. He adapted Women and Wallace for PBS-TV's American Playhouse, and Veins and Thumbtacks was the basis for the movie The Jimmy Show.

Jocelyn Prince (moderator) is the Artistic Associate at The Public Theater, where she produces the Public LAB Speaker Series. Her dramaturgy credits include the Juilliard School of Drama, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Court Theatre, Writers' Theatre, eta Creative Arts Foundation, European Repertory Company, Congo Square Theatre Company, and Steppenwolf Theatre. Jocelyn holds an MA in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and has written for TimeOut Chicago, TimeOut New York, The Chicago Reporter, and the African American Review.