Emily Mester April 2, 2026

Location: Escondido Theater, SUB at 5:00 PM

Emily Mester is a writer from the suburban Midwest, where her family went to Costco every Sunday. She holds an MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa, where she was the winner of the Prairie Lights Nonfiction Prize. She lives in New York and is the author of American Bulk: Essays on Excess. The New York Times, in their review of the book, called Mester a "Midwestern Baudrillard."

"A cultural critic of such promise deserves a big welcome mat," went the New York Times review of Emily's debut, which moves between Costco, Olive Garden, Ulta Cosmetics, "fat camp," Storm Lake, Iowa, three generations of hoarders in Mester's family, and the deindustrialization of the Midwest in its off-kilter, gimlet-eyed, and extraordinarily tender assessment of American consumption.