Louise Steinman

Louise Steinman headshot

Louise Steinman

Biography

Louise Steinman is the founder—and was for 25 years the curator—of the award-winning ALOUD series at the Los Angeles Public Library. She co-directs the Los Angeles Institute of the Humanities at USC and is the author of three books: The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father’s War (Algonquin), which chronicles her quest to return a Japanese flag her father acquired in battle during the Pacific War to its owner’s family;The Knowing Body: The Artist as Storyteller in Contemporary Performance (Shambhala), which is based on her decades-long experience as a performer/director and critic; and The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Polish-Jewish Reconciliation (Beacon), which was published this year in a Polish edition by Osrodek Karta (Warsaw). She received her B.A. in Literature from Reed College and her M.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts at San Francisco State University and has studied Theater/Dance at the Naropa Institute. She is the recipient of the 2019 Chora Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Annenberg Foundation and several fellowships and residencies.