Scenes from Vonnegut's 100th Birthday Gala

Tim O’Brien, author of In the Lake of the Woods and The Things They Carried, was a special guest at the Kurt Vonnegut Centennial Birthday Gala on the night of Nov. 12 at the Lucas Estate in Carmel. 

In addition to describing his friendship with the Indianapolis-born writer, who died in 2007, he talked about the current climate that writers face when trying to honestly describe the world around them. 

“People believe that the form 1040 causes testicular cancer,” he said.  “There are those who are not going to like it and those that are going to burn your books. God knows this happened to me and God knows it's happened to Vonnegut. I think I have now replaced Vonnegut as the most banned writer in America. Not for the literary quality in books but because they contain words like testicular, so I won't use it again. I certainly won't use it tonight at the dinner table.”

From L to R: artist Kyle Ragsdale and the canvas he painted during the gala; Khanae Miller and Chris Speckman, program director for the KVML’s Youth Writing Program; KVML founder and CEO Julia Whitehead and chairman of IBJ Media Corp. Mickey Maurer; novelist Tim O’Brien and KVML free speech ambassador Sophie Maurer

The dinner, and the fundraising gala that went along with it, was sponsored by the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library (KVML). The organization has been at the forefront in the fight against censorship in the United States. To that end, they made 1,000 copies of Vonnegut’s most renowned novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, available to kids in a Florida school district during the summer of 2022, when the nonprofit Moms For Liberty challenged the book’s inclusion in school libraries. 

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Slaughterhouse-Five draws from Vonnegut’s experience being taken as a prisoner during World War II by the Nazis and surviving the firebombing of Dresden. The narrator, Billy Pilgrim, becomes “unstuck in time” and is taken prisoner by aliens on the planet Tralfamadore, where he is treated like a zoo animal. The book often makes banned books lists in the US due to its frank depiction of sexuality and occasional use of profanity.         

But oftentimes, O’Brien argued, using obscenity is necessary to describe reality.

“It's hard to write a novel about an event like Dresden or an event like My Lai. and have a soldier say ‘oh, pooh, I've been shot,’ said the author, who drew from his experience in the Army infantry in Vietnam to fuel his novels. “That isn't real and Vonnegut felt the same way. There are times at night and in life when you have to be allegiant or faithful to obscenity, the obscenity of a massacre you're not going to render in polite language, otherwise you'd be a liar. I think he felt it was his obligation and it certainly feels like it's my obligation to be faithful to the world we live in with all this cruelty and racism and sexism in the world around us.”  

While combating censorship is a big part of the KVML mission, another equally important component is education.

Current Howard University student Khanae Miller came up to the podium at the gala and spoke about how the Vonnegut Youth Writing Program, located at Shortridge High School. She said that the program not only made her a better writer and a better student, but gave her direction on her college admission essay. This, in turn, helped her get into Howard University. 

 “I invented my life when I first stepped foot into the Writing Center,” she said.

Chris Speckman, program director for the KVML’s Youth Writing Program, spoke about the organization’s involvement with Miller’s success.

“I'm so confident to say that I had anything to do with her getting in there,” he said, “but it's nice to be able to say I was along for the ride. It's nice to say that a student that we worked with, got a full ride scholarship to IU, got a full ride scholarship to Purdue, to Butler, to Howard. We've seen a lot of great tangible returns when it comes to helping students get to college,” he said.

Speckman then announced some news concerning the expansion of the KVML Youth Writing Program.  “I'm happy to break it and it's not finalized,” he said. “But our IPS superintendent, Dr. Aleesia. Johnson, has signed off on a plan that would put a bunt to get youth Writing Center in all four IPS schools.”

 This includes Arlington High School, Crispus Attucks, and George Washington High School.

In addition to the list of speakers that evening, attendees also had an opportunity to bid for a painting by Kyle Ragsdale that was painted at the gala, inspired by Vonnegut and the goings on at the event. Attendees were also able to see “Marilyn Monroe” jump out of a cake and sing “Happy Birthday” not only to Kurt Vonnegut, but to Julia Whitehead, KVML’s founder and CEO.