Writers’ Workshop Series Opens with Joan Wickersham

This year's series will feature lectures by George Colt, Jen duBois, and Anne Fadiman
Joan Wickersham. Photo by Michael Lionstar
Joan Wickersham. Photo by Michael Lionstar

An author who writes of heartbreak, regret, and unbidden intimacy will lead off Williston Northampton School’s long-running author lecture series, now in its 17th year.

Author and essayist Joan Wickersham will present the first in this year’s Writers’ Workshop Series on September 23 at 7:00 p.m. in the Dodge Room, Reed Campus Center.

Ms. Wickersham is the acclaimed author of a book of fiction, The News from Spain: Seven Variations on a Love Story (Knopf 2012); a memoir, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order (Harcourt 2008); and a novel, The Paper Anniversary (Viking Adult, 1993).

Ms. Wickersham, who writes a regular op-ed column for The Boston Globe, has also published essays and reviews in Glamour, Yankee, The Los Angeles Times, and The International Herald Tribune. Her fiction has appeared in several anthologies and The Hudson Review, New England Review, and Ploughshares, among others.

In a recent review of News from Spain, the New York Times described Ms. Wickersham as an author who “adroitly mines the small moments around which relationships shift, the places where love begins or ends or falls into that troubling middle ground that haunts sleepless nights.”

Photo by Matthew CavanaughFounded by celebrated authors and Williston parents Madeleine Blais P’00, ’04 and Elinor Lipman P’00, the Writers’ Workshop Series began in 1998 as an advanced class for aspiring student writers. As part of the course, which focuses on intense writing and literary criticism, four well-established writers visit campus to give public lectures and offer hands-on instruction with students.

This year, in addition to Ms. Wickersham, the Writers’ Workshop Series will feature talks by American journalist and author George Colt on October 7; novelist and alumna Jen duBois ’02 on October 17; and essayist and reporter Anne Fadiman on November 3. All lectures are free and open to the public and begin at 7:00 p.m. in the Dodge Room.

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