R-MC’s annual J. Earl Moreland Lecture on Asia will feature Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction in 2017. A book signing will follow the lecture. The Leavers, which won the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, follows one young man's search for his mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant who disappears when he's 11 years old, after which he is adopted by a white family. The book was named one of the best books of 2017 by NPR, Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, The Los Angeles Times, O Magazine, and Electric Literature. Free.