The Censor and the Artist

Art, Literature, and the Persistence of Voice

The program combines a curated selection from approximately 100 original Polish film posters created during Poland’s Communist era with a reading from my forthcoming novel, All There Is to Know, followed by an audience conversation about censorship, creativity, and the persistence of artistic expression.

The Polish posters emerged from an extraordinary contradiction.

Artists were working in a society where political censorship restricted what could be said and represented, yet film-poster commissions provided an unusual space for experimentation. Rather than simply reproducing commercial images from the films they advertised, Polish artists responded with metaphor, abstraction, symbolism, humor, and extraordinary visual invention.

The result was something censorship almost certainly did not intend: a remarkable new form of graphic art.

That history raises questions that remain compelling for readers and artists alike:

• What happens when people in power attempt to regulate what a culture can explore, learn from, imagine, or express?

• Does censorship silence creativity—or does it force artists to invent new languages?

• What happens when certain voices are restricted while others are allowed to dominate?

These questions also lie at the heart of my novel, All There Is to Know, which follows an artist whose personal search for meaning and creative freedom collides with a political movement seeking to suppress artistic expression.

The bookstore event would bring the historical and fictional worlds together through selected original posters, storytelling about the circumstances in which they were created, a reading from the novel, and an open conversation with the audience.

The program includes:

• Display of a curated selection of original Polish film posters

• A short illustrated discussion of the remarkable Polish poster movement

• A reading from All There Is to Know

• Conversation about censorship, literature, visual art, and freedom of expression

• Audience Q&A

• Book signing and sales

For me, the most interesting aspect of the evening is that it is not simply a discussion about censorship. It is a discussion about what artists do in response to it.

When: October 21 2026

Where: ArtHouse, Eugene, OR