Thursday, November 19 · 6–7:30 PM · Pilsen Community Books · Chicago
Join us at Pilsen Community Books for a conversation around The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice with the author and mitigation specialist Elizabeth Vartkessian. Elizabeth isn't part of the Innocence Project; her clients are often legally guilty, and often of terrible crimes. Rather, her job is to spend hundreds of hours per case talking to the parents, siblings, teachers, and neighbors of a defendant, situating their crimes in context. The Deserving challenges us to move beyond dominant narratives about criminality and rehabilitation into a deeper understanding of accountability.
About Elizabeth Vartkessian
Mitigation specialist Elizabeth Vartkessian has been investigating the life histories of those facing the most severe penalties possible in the United States since 2004. She is the author of The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice, published by Bloomsbury in January 2026. Elizabeth holds a PhD in law and an MS in comparative social policy from the University of Oxford, and BAs in philosophy and political science from the George Washington University. She is the founder and executive director of Advancing Real Change Inc., a national nonprofit dedicated to conducting life history investigations in criminal cases. She lives in Baltimore.