Everyone Remain Calm

Chicago-based essayist Megan Stielstra is not calm. In the two distinct pieces that make up Everyone Remain Calm, she explores the fears we carry moving day-to-day through this beautiful mess of a world; tornados and shooters and the relationships we'd die to protect. In collaboration with Eighth Blackbird, she dives deep into today's overwhelming rage and quiet, ever-enduring hope. Maybe staying calm isn't the answer. Maybe it's time to scream.

Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: Everyone Remain Calm, Once I Was Cool, and The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, the 2017 Nonfiction Book of the Year from the Chicago Review of Books. Her work appears in the Best American Essays, New York Times, The Believer, Tin House, Longreads, Guernica, and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, Radio National Australia, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and theatres, festivals, and classrooms around the county. She teaches creative nonfiction at Northwestern University and is a 2021 Civic Media Fellow with the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California.