Category Archives: Writers’ Workshop Series

2015 Writers’ Workshop to Explore Personal Journeys

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Portrait of David Maraniss by Lucian Perkins
Portrait of David Maraniss by Lucian Perkins

Delving into the very personal is at the heart of the 2015 Writers’ Workshop Series, which will explore a range of journeys—of professional growth, political power, and revenge—through the work of four strong storytellers this fall.

Williston Northampton School’s popular lecture series, conceived by authors Madeleine Blais P ’00, ’04 and Elinor Lipman P ’00, is celebrating its 18th year of hosting inspiring and inventive writers on campus.

Lectures are always free, open to the public, and take place in Williston’s Dodge Room in the Reed Campus Center at 7:00 p.m.

Ian Cheney
Ian Cheney

The 2015 series begins with acclaimed journalist and award-winning biographer David Maraniss, who will speak about his most recent work, Once in A Great City: A Detroit Story, on September 24. Mr. Maraniss has been nominated in the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting for the Washington Post, and has written acclaimed biographies on Barack Obama, Vince Lombardi, and Bill Clinton, among others. His latest book explores his hometown during the rapid changes of the 1960s.

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Posted in: Williston Northampton News, Writers' Workshop Series

Writers’ Workshop Presents Anne Fadiman

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Anne Fadiman 2014The Writers’ Workshop Series concludes its 17th season with the acclaimed essayist and reporter Anne Fadiman.

Ms. Fadiman—who is perhaps best well known for her book on the cultural conflicts between a Hmong family and the American medical system—will speak about and read from some of her work on November 3 at 7:00 p.m. in the Phillips Stevens Chapel.

Ms. Fadiman’s 1997 book on Lia Lee, a Hmong child with epilepsy, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: a Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest, and the Salon Book Award. According to a 2012 New York Times article, the book has also sold almost 900,000 copies and is required reading in university classes on medicine, social work, anthropology, and journalism.

“As a result, Lia’s story, as few other narratives have done, has had a significant effect on the ways in which American medicine is practiced across cultures, and on the training of doctors,” the article notes.

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Posted in: Special Programs, Williston Northampton News, Writers' Workshop Series

Writers’ Workshop Presents Jennifer duBois

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Jen duBoisTwo years ago she spoke intimately about crafting a story about Soviet-era Russia; on Friday, October 17, author Jennifer duBois ’02 returns to the Williston Northampton School to reveal the secrets behind her latest award-winning novel, Cartwheel.

Ms. duBois, who’s debut novel was the critically acclaimed A Partial History of Lost Causes, returns to the Writers’ Workshop Series to talk about her newest work, which recounts the story of an American foreign exchange student arrested for murder, and a father trying to hold his family together.

A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a former Stanford University Stegner Fellow, Ms. duBois is the recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award. Her debut novel, A Partial History of Lost Causes, won the California Book Award for First Fiction and the Northern California Book Award for Fiction. It was also a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction. She currently teaches in the MFA program at Texas State University.

“We all look to our lives for inspiration in our fiction writing,” Ms. duBois told the Williston audience during her last visit. “But I think we can get in trouble sometimes when we see our lives as parameters instead of possibilities.”

Writers’ Workshop Series lectures begin at 7:00 p.m. in the Dodge Room, Reed Campus Center and are free and open to the public. The final installment of this year’s Writers’ Workshop will be on November 3 with essayist and reporter Anne Fadiman and will be held in the Phillips Stevens Chapel. The series, now in its 17th year, was founded by Madeleine Blais P’00, ’04 and Elinor Lipman P’00 and, in addition to four lectures by prominent authors each fall, includes master classes for Williston students.

Posted in: Special Programs, Williston Northampton News, Writers' Workshop Series

That Moment When the Project Comes Alive

Author Joan Wickersham Presents First in Writers' Workshop Series
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Photo by Matthew Cavanaugh
Photo by Matthew Cavanaugh

In her talk at the Grubbs Gallery on September 23, author Joan Wickersham offered to break down the minutiae of two of her books, about suicide and love, respectively.

“If you’re a writer, that’s what you want to know: How did a book get written?” she said, adding that, “both were messy subjects and very structured books.”

The first of the two, The Suicide Index, took Ms. Wickersham 11 years to write in part, she said, because the initial finished version was a novel, a “very polite, dead book.” So when she began to edit the material, Ms. Wickersham found herself throwing out every chapter.

“I was trying to treat suicide as a conventional story,” she said, shaking her head.

What emerged instead—once she had disposed of the idea that she could take her father’s suicide and turn it into a novel—was a series of fragments that the author then arranged alphabetically, imposing a form of order on a chaotic experience.

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Posted in: Special Programs, Writers' Workshop Series

Writers’ Workshop Presents George Howe Colt

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George Howe Colt by Ellen M. Augarten
George Howe Colt by Ellen M. Augarten

George Howe Colt, who has written intimate tales of boyhood, sibling relationships, and family history, will speak about his work on Oct. 7 as part of Williston Northampton School’s annual speaker series.

Mr. Colt, the bestselling author of The Big House, will present the next lecture in the Writers’ Workshop Series—all of which are free and open to the public—at 7:00 p.m. in the Dodge Room, Reed Campus Center.

Along with The Big House (2004), which was a National Book Award finalist for nonfiction and a New York Times notable book of the year, Mr. Colt has written November of the Soul: The Enigma of Suicide (2006) and Brothers (Scribner 2012). He worked for Life magazine as a staff reporter and has also published pieces in The New York Times, Civilization, and Mother Jones.

In its “briefly noted” section, The New Yorker summed up The Big House this way: “Colt’s account, like the house that lies at its center, is full of surprises and contains more than seems humanly possible: a family memoir, a brief history of the Cape, an investigation of nostalgia, a catalogue of local fauna, a study of class, and a meditation on the privileges and burdens of the past.”

Following Mr. Colt, this year’s Writers’ Workshop Series will feature talks by novelist Jennifer DuBois ’02 on October 17 and Mr. Colt’s wife, essayist and reporter Anne Fadiman, on November 3. The series, now in its 17th year, was founded by Madeleine Blais P’00, ’04 and Elinor Lipman P’00 and, in addition to four lectures by prominent authors each fall, includes master classes for Williston students.

Posted in: Special Programs, Upper School, Williston Northampton News, Writers' Workshop Series