John Sayles, author of A Moment in the Sun, speaks with hosts Randall Albers and Bruce Sheridan.

The work of John Sayles has been integral to the development of independent film in the United States. Beginning with his first feature, Return of the Secaucus 7, his movies have helped define the “other” that exists beyond Hollywood. Despite an unwillingness to tailor his subject matter and style to the dictates of the mainstream, he has managed to direct sixteen feature films, including his most recent movie, Honeydripper (2007), which starred Danny Glover. His seventeenth feature, Amigo, was filmed in the Philippines in early 2010.

Sayles began his career as a storyteller as a writer of fiction, authoring the novels Pride of the Bimbos (1975), Union Dues (1978, nominated for National Book Award and National Critics’ Circle Award), and Los Gusanos (1990), and short story collections The Anarchists’ Convention (1979) and Dillinger in Hollywood (2004). His novel A Moment In The Sun, set during the same period as Amigo, in the Philippines, Cuba, and the U.S., will be released in 2011 by Dave Egger’s publishing house, McSweeney’s. Sayles was recently honored with the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Writer’s Guild of America.

This event contains explicit language and adult themes.

Story Week Festival of Writers features some of the best, most diverse voices at work today in fiction, film, theater, art, music, and publishing. Other events from this festival recorded by Chicago Amplified—listed in the order they were presented—are as follows:

2nd Story
Reading/Grad Open Mic Featuring Megan Stielstra
Bonnie Jo Campbell and Don DeGrazia
Bonnie Jo Campbell and Donna Seaman
Portraits of an American Dream: The Female in Contemporary Fiction
Full Time Fiction Writing Faculty Reading featuring Betty Shiflett
Beyond the Dream: What It Takes to Get Published
From Page to Stage: Scenes From Student Playwrights
Conversation with Playwright Young Jean Lee
Surviving the American Dream
Reading, Conversation, and Book Signing with John Sayles
Literary Rock & Roll: American Dreamers with Heidi W. Durrow, John Sayles, Patricia Ann McNair, musical guest Canasta
Chicago Classics

Recorded Wednesday, March 22, 2012 at Film Row Cinema.