Pigs: A Circular Economy Book Reading and Panel Discussion

Johanna Stoberock

Join visionary author Johanna Stoberock for an exploration of her new work, Pigs, and consider how a circular economy could prevent Stoberock’s unsettling allegory from becoming reality. Stoberock’s new novel examines the human and systemic consequences of our current take-make-waste system, revealing the often overlooked and unforeseen costs to the planet, economies and, especially, people.

Following this special presentation, the author will join a panel of sustainability experts from ASU, industry and community development to discuss the unanticipated effects of our real-world linear waste system on people and communities, assessing current trends and innovations for a circular economy to reuse and regenerate our world’s resources.

About Pigs:
Four children live on an island that serves as the repository for all the world’s garbage. Trash arrives, the children sort it, and then they feed it to a herd of insatiable pigs: a perfect system. But when a barrel washes ashore with a boy inside, the children must decide whether he is more of the world’s detritus, meant to be fed to the pigs, or whether he is one of them. Written in exquisitely wrought prose, Pigs asks questions about community, environmental responsibility, and the possibility of innocence.

Buy the book from Changing Hands Bookstore.

Circular Economy Panel:

• Alicia Marseille (moderator): Director of Innovation, Arizona State University Rob & Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service
• Sara Axelrod, Director of Sustainability, Beverage Packaging North and Central America at Ball Corporation
• Jessica Gonzalez, Program Officer, Economic Development at Local Initiatives Support Corporation - Phoenix
• Ginger Spencer, Director of Public Works, City of Phoenix

Presented by the ASU Rob & Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service, ASU Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, ASU Center for Science and the Imagination, Changing Hands Bookstore.