Alissa Wilkinson, portrait of Joan Didion (NYPL Digital Collections), and Didion book covers
Joan Didion remains one of the defining writers of our time. Her voice on the page, the way it addresses the world and the self, resonates deeply with the truth of contemporary experience and has made her an inescapable influence.
Guiding a four-part course through Didion’s incisive and elegant essays and memoirs is Alissa Wilkinson, film critic for The New York Times and author of We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine (2025). Drawing on selections from Library of America’s three-volume Joan Didion Collection, the class welcomes readers both familiar with Didion and those newer to her work.
The first two sessions will explore the peaks of Didion’s career: the masterful essays “Goodbye to All That” (1967), “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” (1967), and “The White Album” (1968–1978), and her revelatory late-career memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking (2005). In sessions three and four, Wilkinson will venture into surprising and lesser-known sides of Didion, illuminating prescient works that shed new light on her legacy: the pop-culture and political fascinations of “John Wayne: A Love Song” (1965), “Insider Baseball” (1988), “Sentimental Journeys” (1990), and “Fixed Ideas” (2003).
Joan Didion and the Art of Storytelling
with Alissa Wilkinson
The Joan Didion Collection
Four sessions: September 29, October 6, October 20, and October 27
Sessions will be held weekly on Monday evenings (skipping the week of October 13) from 6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. ET.
Or go to: rebrand.ly/DidionCourse
Registration fee:
• Without books: $200
• With The Joan Didion Collection three-volume boxed set: $260 (50% off list price)
LOA Members get 25% off: $150 ($210 w/ books). Learn more about the perks of becoming an LOA Member.
Space is limited and registration will be on a first-come, first-served basis. To ensure you receive your copy of The Joan Didion Collection by the first session, September 29, please register by Tuesday, September 16. Didion volumes also sold separately.
Please note: Due to the high cost of international delivery, we are unable to ship books outside the US and its territories.
Sessions will take place on Zoom and will last 75 minutes. Attendees are encouraged to share questions in advance via e-mail and during the class. We will send a private recording after each session in case you have to miss it or would like to watch again.
If the cost to attend this program presents a hardship to you, we are pleased to offer a number of scholarship places free of charge. Please e-mail support@loa.org for more information.
Visit loa.org/events for a calendar of upcoming events and an archive of past programs.
