Name: James Janko
Start: 2025-10-15T19:30:00-07:00
End: 2025-10-15T19:30:00-07:00
Location: The Mehdi Reading Room

James Janko

The Wire-Walker

This event has already occurred

Date:: Wednesday, October 15
Time:: 7:30 pm PDT
Cost:: $10 – $35 Sliding Scale

Venue

: The Mehdi Reading Room
: 1119 8th Ave
Seattle, 98101 United States + Google Map

Event Format: In-Person

EVENT NOTES
Doors for this event will open at 6:30 PM. Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.

Arts & Culture

In the Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus, Palestine, sixteen-year-old Amal Tuqan finds her escape in tightrope walking. Living in an alley so narrow that “the walls hold their breath,” she practices tirelessly on thin wires and slippery rebar. Her extraordinary talent leads her to Tel Aviv in the summer of 2019, where she joins The Flying Kids, a circus that brings together Israeli and Palestinian children. There, she forms a deep friendship with Tali Glazman, a Jewish Israeli juggler, and they discover they share a painful bond: both have lost their fathers to violence.

As their friendship defies the deep-seated animosities that divide them, The Wire-Walker reveals more than just a tale of friendship; it is a raw and powerful commentary on the daily struggles faced by Amal and her community in the occupied West Bank. Award-winning author James Janko’s vividly-imagined novel is set against the backdrop of 2019-2020, serving a prequel to the struggles that have unfolded since. Janko joins us at Town Hall to discuss more from his novel, highlighting the enduring spirit of youth amidst conflict.

James Janko is the author of three award-winning novels. He learned to write on Alcatraz Island where he worked alone as a nightwatchman from 1979 to 1992. Janko’s awards include: the Juniper Prize from the University of Massachusetts Press for his novel, The Wire-Walker; the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for the Novel for The Clubhouse Thief; The Northern California Book Award and The Association of Asian American Studies Prose Award for Buffalo Boy and Geronimo. His novel, What We Don’t Talk About (University of Wisconsin Press), tells the story of his hometown in rural Illinois. Janko’s experience as a combat medic in the Vietnam War informs much of his work.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle.