Held in New York on November 30, December 1 and December 2, 1978, The Nova Convention was a three-day event honoring the cultural impact of the work of William S. Burroughs, imagined by James Grauerholz and co-produced by GPS and semiotext(e). The gathering included discussions, performances, and readings by Burroughs, Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Peter Orlovsky, Laurie Anderson, Julia Heyward, Anne Waldman, and others. The artist Les Levine moderated a particularly poignant conversation about science fiction and the not-yet-here future between Burroughs, Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary and Brion Gysin. Keith Richards had to cancel last-minute, but Frank Zappa read extracts from Burroughs’ Naked Lunch instead.

Howard Brookner had brought multiple camera crews to film the event, but most of the footage had been lost, only to have recently resurfaced and made into the film Nova ’78 (2025) written and directed by Howard’s nephew Aaron Brookner and co-directed by Rodrigo Areias.

The film had its US premiere at MoMA a day prior this event.

This event features a screening of the film followed by a conversation between Aaron Brookner and the poet, novelist, and biographer Brad Gooch, author of the best-selling biography Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring (Harper, 2024) and Smash Cut: A Memoir of Howard & Art & the ‘70s & the ‘80s (2016), among many others.