A companion speaker series to the MFA program, Inspired Writers events are designed to provide encouragement and inspiration for writers, but to inform, entertain, and enlighten any participant with lively discussions from top authors. All events are free and open to the public.
Upcoming Events
Professor and author Phil Klay will lead the MFA in Creative Writing Program's virtual series of free author talks this fall.
Kaitlyn Greenidge
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Kaitlyn Greenidge
On (new date!) Monday, November 1 at 7:30 p.m., Klay will engage in a conversation with Kaitlyn Greenidge titled “The Weight of History and the Search for Freedom.” Hailed by The New York Times as “a feat of monumental thematic imagination” and by Publisher’s Weekly as a “genius work of radical historical fiction,” Whiting-prize winner Greenidge’s Libertie explores the questions of personal freedom, trauma, motherhood, and Black liberation through the story of Libertie Sampson, a Black girl in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn whose doctor-mother expects Libertie to follow in her trailblazing path.
On Thursday, November 18 at 7:30 p.m., Megha Majumdar and Klay will speak on the topic of “Politics and Power.” In her universally acclaimed book, A Burning, Majumdar tells the story of the aftermath of a terrorist attack in modern India through the lives of three characters caught up in the subsequent political hysteria. In what The New Yorker’s James Wood declared an “immersive” and “masterly” narrative, Majumdar richly inhabits different voices and perspectives in a tale at once sophisticated about the workings of power and deeply humanistic in its depictions of characters struggling at the margins.
David Philipps “The War for the Soul of the Navy SEALS”
Thursday, September 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Philipps and Inspired Writers Series host Phil Klay will discuss Philipps’ new book, Alpha: Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy SEALs. Considered a war hero by some and a war criminal by many of the members of his own platoon, former Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher rose to national prominence when Donald Trump pardoned him for his misconduct overseas. Utilizing a large array of sources including interviews, court documents, and contemporary texts and emails, Philipps' book carefully reconstructs the events of Gallagher’s deployment, the debates that raged among the members of his unit, and the disturbing response of their leadership when they came forward with concerns about war crimes.
Special Live Episode: “Fratelli Tutti and Fairview”
Join us for a live recording of Manifesto! A Podcast, your regular visit to the archives of vanity, where men and women who had stopped making myths turned to issuing commandments.
Your guides for this journey are Fairfield University MFA Professor Phil Klay, author of Missionaries and the National Book Award-winning Redeployment, and Jacob Siegel, a senior writer at Tablet magazine. Our special guest, Vinson Cunningham, is a staff writer and a theater critic at The New Yorker. We will be discussing the most recent encyclical from Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, as well as the play Fairview, by Jackie Sibblies Drury.
Thursday, May 6, 2021 7:30 p.m. Free Virtual Event
As a series of political, economic, and natural crises have exposed the weaknesses of American institutions, a number of writers have explored the complex ways those institutions shape our lives, for good and ill. Few do so in a more viscerally powerfully way than the writers Kirstin Valdez Quade and Ryan Leigh Dostie.
The Five Wounds, Quade’s highly anticipated debut novel, delicately explores the way a local religious association and a nonprofit program for teen mothers influence the lives of one family in New Mexico, exposing them to opportunity, pain, abuse of power, and fellowship.
Formation, Ryan Leigh Dostie’s memoir of her time in the military, charts her deployment, her growth as a soldier and a person, as well as the military’s horrific mishandling of her rape at the hands of a fellow servicemember.
In a world where political debate often feels like a pitched battle, and sometimes devolves into actual violence, three military veterans and fiction writers discuss their recent novels which move beyond the narrow scope of combat to tackle broader subjects of politics, protest, and identity.
Matt Gallagher's Empire City, veterans in an alternate version of America find themselves caught up in political violence and electoral intrigue. Elliot Ackerman's Red Dress in Black and White, meanwhile, takes us to the 2013 Ghezi Park protests in Istanbul, while Dewaine Farria's Revolutions of All Colors ranges from the Black Panthers in 1970s New Orleans to the work of modern-day contractors in Somalia to expatriate life in Kiev, Ukraine.
The evening will be moderated by MFA writing professor and author Phil Klay and the writers will discuss the intersection of politics, war, and art.
For more information, please visit thequicklive.com. No reservation is necessary.
Alumnae Author Panel: A Writer's Journey To Page and Stage
Lisa Lucas Director, National Book Foundation The Need for Literature in Politically Challenging Times
Dolan School of Business Dining Room
Lucas is the Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, she served as the Publisher of Guernica, a non-profit online magazine focusing on writing that explores the intersection of art and politics with an international and diverse focus and as Director of Education at the Tribeca Film Institute. Lucas also serves on the literary council of the Brooklyn Book Festival. Find her on Twitter at @likalucaEndFragment
This event is free and open to the public and is co-presented by The Dean's Office of the College of Arts & Sciences, Connecticut Center for the Book, the Connecticut Writing Project, the DiMenna-Nyselius Library, the Humanities Institute, Departments of English, Politics and Philosophy, Core Writing, the Center for Faith and Public Life, the Women & Gender Studies Program, the Office of Student Engagement, the Office of Residence Life.
Thursday, February 22, 2018 at 7 p.m.
Baron Wormser Tom O’Vietnam
Fairfield University Bookstore – Downtown Fairfield
Baron Wormser’s fifteenth book, Tom o’ Vietnam, traces the travels of a Vietnam vet in the fall of 1982. Tom o’ Vietnam is a very American road novel but also an evocation and investigation of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Like Tom o’ Bedlam, Tom is hiding out, “impersonating a person,” as he puts it. Tom journeys on one bus after another across a landscape that makes him wonder what he was fighting for. From Santa Fe to Washington, D.C., he meets fellow Americans who have their own stories to tell and who wonder about his. Along the way he spends time with his three sisters, all the while attempting to deal with the demons of the war and the ghosts of the Shakespearean tragedy he carries with him. Tom o’ Vietnam blends poetry, history, and dark wit, as it bears witness to the depths of eloquence and grief, anger and endurance.
Baron Wormser is the author of nine books of poetry and a poetry chapbook. He is the co-author of two books about teaching poetry and the author of a memoir along with a book of short stories and a novel. He teaches in the Fairfield University MFA program. He also is the Founding Director of Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching in Franconia, New Hampshire. He served as poet laureate of Maine from 2000 to 2005.
This event is free and open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing
Tuesday, November 14, 2017 at 7 p.m.
Christian Madsbjerg Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm
Dolan School of Business Dining Room
Christian Madsbjerg's Sensemaking is a provative stand against the tyranny of big data and scientism, and an urgent, overdue defense of human intelligence. He argues that our fixation with data often masks stunning deficiencies, and the risks for humankind are enormous. blind devotion to number crunching imperils our busnesses, our educations, our governments and our life savings. Too many companies have lost touch with the humanity of their customers, while marginalizing workers with liberal arts-based skills. Contrary to popular thinking, Madsbjerg shows how many of today's biggest success stories stem not from "quant" thinking but from deep, nuanced engagement with culture, language, and history. He calls this method sensemaking.
"Madsbjerg thinks that if businesses accept pure data as the only truth, they are in danger of losing their ability to understand people. But it is by no means the author's aim to dismiss stem subjects. Through his particular method, his intention is to help companies find the right balance. The best CEO's can read a novel and a spreadsheet." - Financial Times
This event is free and open to the public and is presented by the Humanities Institute of the College of Arts & Sciences and the Dolan School of Business.
Thursday, October 24, 2017 at 7 p.m.
Matt Tullis Running with Ghosts: A Memoir of Surviving Childhood Cancer
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
In Running With Ghosts, Matt Tullis reminds us that surviving childhood cancer can be a challenge as formidable as fighting for your life—and more enduring. The eldest of three sons born to a trucker and an office-worker, who lived in the idyllic village of Apple Creek, Ohio, Tullis was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age 15. In short order, the sports-mad teenager found himself on the cancer ward of Akron Children’s Hospital. One of the lucky ones, he walked out and kept on going.
Years later, as a journalist and college professor, Tullis began to wonder about all the friends and caregivers he’d left behind on 4-North. As his curiosity intensified, he decided to seek them out. Running With Ghosts is about friendship, loss, triumph, and closure: one man’s effort to understand more fully a life shaped by a random mutation in the code of his DNA.
Matt Tullis is an assistant professor of digital journalism and English at Fairfield University. He is the host and producer of Gangrey: The Podcast and is an associate editor for River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and presented by the College of Arts & Sciences, the MFA in Creative Writing, the Department of English and the Kanarek Center for Palliative Care and Nursing Education.
Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 7 p.m. Leila Philip Water Rising
Di-Menna Nyselius Library Multimedia Room – Fairfield University
In 2012, Leila Philip and Garth Evans set out to challenge themselves as artists. Philip, an award-winning prose writer, wrote poems. Evans, an internationally renowned sculptor, made watercolors. Water Rising tells the story of this remarkable collaboration. Philip’s realist poems—about nature, beauty, love, and loss, set amongst Evans’ abstract, deeply hued, layered watercolors, create a book which is more than just a gorgeous read and a visual feast. What emerges in this book is a stunning and original collaboration, which, as Worcester Art Museum Director, Matthias Waschek, points out in his introduction, extends how we think about the relationship between painting and poetry.
Leila Philip is the author of three books of nonfiction prose. The Road Through Miyama, Hidden Dialogue; A Discussion Between Women in Japan and the United States, and the award-winning memoir, A Family Place: A Hudson Valley Farm, Three Centuries, Five Wars, One Family. Her most recent book is a collection of poetry titled, Water Rising. Her writing has been recognized by numerous awards including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Radcliffe Research and Study Center, the American Association of University Women, the Deming Memorial Fund and the Futhermore Foundation.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the College of Arts & Sciences and the MFA in Creative Writing
Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 7 p.m. Elizabeth H. Boquet Nowhere Near the Line: Pain and Possibility in Teaching and Writing
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
In this short work, Elizabeth Boquet traces the overlaps and intersections of a lifelong education around guns and violence, as a student, a teacher, a feminist, a daughter, a wife, a citizen and across the dislocations and relocations that are part of a life lived in and around school. Weaving narratives of family, the university classroom and administration, her husband’s work as a police officer, and her work with students and the Poetry for Peace effort that her writing center sponsors in the local schools, she recounts her efforts to respond to moments of violence with a pedagogy of peace. “Can we not acknowledge that our experiences with pain anywhere should render us more, not less, capable of responding to it everywhere?” she asks. “Compassion, it seems to me, is an infinitely renewable resource.”
Elizabeth H. Boquet is professor of English and director of the Writing Center at Fairfield University. She is the coauthor of The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice and author of Noise from the Writing Center.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and ispresented by the College of Arts & Sciences, the MFA in Creative Writing and the Department of English.
Thursday, March 2, 2017 at 7 p.m. Sonya Huber Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
This collection of literary and experimental essays about living with chronic pain steps through the doorway into pain itself, into that strange, unbounded reality. Although the essays are personal in nature, they are an exploration that transcends pain’s airless and constraining world and focuses on its edges from wild and widely ranging angles. Huber addresses the nature and experience of invisible disability, including the challenges of gender bias in our health care system, the search for effective treatment options, and the difficulty of articulating chronic pain. She makes pain a lens of inquiry and lyricism, finds its humor and complexity, describes its irascible character, and explores its temperature, taste, and even its beauty.
Sonya Huber is an Assistant Professor teaching creative nonfiction, publishing, editing, and composition and is director of the MFA in Creative Writing at Fairfield Univeristy. She is the author of two books of creative nonfiction, Opa Nobody, shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize, and Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir, finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the College of Arts & Sciences, the MFA in Creative Writing and the Department of English.
Thursday, March 30, 2017 at 7 p.m. Paul Lakeland The Wounded Angel: Fiction and the Religious Imagination
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
In this unique book, readers are taken on a journey to explore the role of the imagination in the face of mystery, whether it be the mystery of God, whose full reality lies beyond our earthly horizons, or the deepest mysteries of life hinted at in the work of fiction. By attending to a series of novels, Dr. Lakeland proposes serious fiction as an antidote to the failure of the religious imagination today and shows how literature might lead the secular mind at least to the threshold of mystery.
Paul Lakeland is the Aloysius P. Kelley, SJ, Professor of Catholic Studies and founding director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University, a Jesuit institution in Connecticut. Educated at Heythrop Pontifical Athenaeum, Oxford University, the University of London, and Vanderbilt University, he has taught at Fairfield since 1981. He is the author of nine previous books, the most recent of which is A Council That Will Never End: Lumen Gentium and the Church Today. He is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the American Theological Society, the College Theology Society, and the Catholic Theological Society of America. He blogs occasionally and reviews fiction for Commonweal, a Catholic journal of opinion.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the College of Arts & Sciences, the MFA in Creative Writing, the Center for Catholic Studies and the Learning for a Lifetime program.
Friday, March 31, 2017 at 7 p.m. Matthew Winkler Mentoring Teenage Heroes: The Hero's Journey of Adolescence
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
Mentoring Teenage Heroes is written for parents, teachers, coaches, and other ex-adolescents who now guide today’s teenagers along the heroic journey from childhood to adulthood — a rite of passage as old as the ancient myths that metaphorically describe it. Those myths echo through contemporary books and movies and the real-world experience of growing up. For most adults, daily life is a routine grind. For teenagers, it’s an epic struggle for identity.
Matthew P. Winkler, a graduate of Fairfield University’s MFA in Creative Writing, has taught and mentored teenagers at middle schools, high schools, and colleges in New York, New England, China, and Japan. He currently serves as the Writer in Residence at The Rectory School in Connecticut. He conducts presentations and workshops related to his TED-Ed video "What Makes a Hero?" and his book Mentoring Teenage Heroes: The Hero's Journey of Adolescence published by Woodhall Press.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and issponsored by the MFA in Creative Writing
Tuesday, April 4, 2017 at 7 p.m. Gloria Norris Kookooland
Dolan School of Business Dining Room
Gloria Norris’s KooKooLand is a memoir written on the edge of a knife blade. Chilling, intensely moving, and darkly funny, it cuts to the heart and soul of a troubled American family, and announces the arrival of a startlingly original voice. The story is a profound portrait of how violence echoes through a family, and through a community. From the tragedy, Gloria finds a way to carve out a future on her own terms and ends up just where she wants to be.
In the tradition of The Glass Castle and With or Without You, KooKooLand is a bracingly funny and chilling true crime memoir about a girl’s gutsy journey to escape her charismatic yet cruel father’s reign—an unforgettable story of violence, love, and, ultimately, triumph.
Gloria Norris began her career in New York as an assistant to film directors Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen. Since relocating to Los Angeles, she has worked as a screenwriter with assignments that have taken her from Paris to the Amazon. As an independent producer, her films have premiered at the Sundance, Toronto, and Tribeca Film festivals. Gloria lives in Santa Monica, CA with her writer/editor husband, James Greenberg.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing
Tuesday, April 18, 2017 at 7 p.m. Jean Hanff Korelitz The Devil and Webster
Dolan School of Business Dining Room
The Devil and Webster examines the fragility that lies behind who we think we are and what we think we believe. This twisty new novel about a college president and a baffling student protest touches on some of the most hot-button issues on today's college campuses and addresses the controversial concerns at the heart of our society.
Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of the novels You Should Have Known, Admission, The White Rose, The Sabbathday River and A Jury of Her Peers. She has also written a novel for children, Interference Powder, and a collection of poetry, The Properties of Breath. Most recently, her immersive adaptation (with Paul Muldoon) of James Joyce’s “The Dead”. THE DEAD, 1904, was produced for the Irish Repertory Theatre in NYC. Korelitz lives in New York City with her husband, Irish poet Paul Muldoon, and their children.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing and the Irish Studies Program.
Fairfield University’s Inspired Writer Series series was initiated as a companion to the MFA program and celebrates the program’s concentrations in fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry with a rotation of exemplary guest authors.
Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 7 p.m. Sonya Huber The Evolution of Hillary Rodham Clinton
Aloysius P. Kelley Center Presentation Room – Fairfield University
Sonya Huber’s short, accessible book takes a balanced look at Hillary, delving into the evolution of her image, her detractors and their attacks, and her policy decisions, offering an overview of the forces that have shaped her.
“Finally, a book for people who are unsure about how they think about Hillary Clinton…..In short, Huber has humanized Hillary Clinton in a way no one else has—or is willing to. An essential read for anyone on the Left.” –Robert Greene II, Book Review Editor, Society of U.S. Intellectual Historians
Sonya Huber is an Assistant Professor teaching creative nonfiction, publishing, editing, and composition and is director of the MFA in Creative Writing at Fairfield Univeristy. She is the author of two books of creative nonfiction, Opa Nobody, shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize, and Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir, finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the College of Arts & Sciences and the MFA in Creative Writing
Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 7 p.m. Yohuru Williams and Bryan Shih The Black Panthers: Portraits From An Unfinished Revolution
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
In The Black Panthers, photojournalist Bryan Shih and historian Yohuru Williams offer a reappraisal of the party’s history and legacy. Through stunning portraits and interviews with surviving Panthers, as well as illuminating essays by leading scholars, The Black Panthers reveals party members’ grit and battle scars—and the undying love for the people that kept them going.
“Brilliant, painful, enlightening, tearful, tragic, sad, and funny, this photo-essay book is at its core about healing, and about the social justice work that still needs to be done in the era of hip-hop, Black Lives Matter, and the historic presidency of Barack Obama.” —Kevin Powell, author of The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy’s Journey into Manhood
Dr. Yohuru Williams is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of History at Fairfield University and his previous books include: Black Politics/White Power: Civil Rights Black Power and Black Panthers in New Haven, Teaching U.S. History Beyond the Textbook and, most recently, Rethinking the Black Freedom Movement: American Social and Political Movements of the 20th Century.
Bryan Shih is a photojournalist based in New York and, previously, a contributor to the Financial Times and National Public Radio in Japan. A former Fulbright scholar, his work on the Panthers has garnered him one of the highest rankings among entries in the LensCulture 2015 Portrait Awards competition.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Program in Black Studies and the MFA in Creative Writing
Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 7 p.m. Mary Donnarumma Sharnick Orla’s Canvas
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
Mary Donnarumma Sharnick has been writing ever since the day she printed her long name on her first library card. A native of Connecticut, she graduated from Fairfield University with a degree in English and earned a master’s degree from Trinity College, Hartford.
Orla’s Canvas is a coming-of-age tale about a young artist set against the backdrop of Civil Rights-era New Orleans. It took First Place in the Novel-for-Adults category in the Connecticut Press Club Communications Contest, 2016 and The National Federation of Press Women awarded the novel Third Place in its 2016 national competition.
Mary’s first two novels, Thirst and Plagued, are set in the Venetian lagoon during the seventeenth and fifteenth centuries, respectively. Thirst is being adapted for the operatic stage by composer Gerard Chiusano and librettists Mary Chiusano and Robert Cutrofello.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the Lifelong Learning program, Alumni Relations and the MFA in Creative Writing.
Friday, December 2, 2016 at 6 p.m. Isaac Fitzgerald Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos (with Recipes)
Di-Menna Nyselius Library Presentation Room, Fairfield University
Chefs take their tattoos almost as seriously as their knives. From gritty grill cooks in backwoods diners to the executive chefs at the world's most popular restaurants, it's hard to find a cook who doesn't sport some ink. Knives & Ink features the tattoos of more than sixty-five chefs from all walks of life and every kind of kitchen, including 2014 James Beard Award-winner Jamie Bissonnette, Alaska-fishing-boat cook Mandy Lamb, Toro Bravo's John Gorham, and many more.
"One of the fall’s most unusual books is a gorgeous look at the tattoos (and the stories behind them) of 65 chefs, some famous, some not." - "Must-Read Books of the Fall," Entertainment Weekly
Isaac Fitzgerald has been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and been given a sword by a king, thereby accomplishing three out of five of his childhood goals. He is the editor of BuzzFeed Books and co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them. He has also written for McSweeney's, Mother Jones, and The San Francisco Chronicle.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing and the Department of English.
Tuesday, April 26 at 7 p.m.
Mary Pat Kelly Of Irish Blood
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield
As an author and filmmaker, Mary Pat Kelly has told various stories connected to Ireland. Her best-selling novel Galway Bay (2009), called “pure magic” by Frank McCourt, is based on the history of her Irish-American family. Of Irish Blood (2015) continues the saga. A story in which Mary Pat Kelly weaves historical characters such as Maud Gonne, William Butler Yeats, Countess Markievicz, Michael Collins, and Eamon de Valera, as well as Gabrielle Chanel, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Nora Barnicle, creating a vivid and compelling story inspired by the life of her great-aunt.
Mary Pat Kelly has worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter for Paramount and Columbia Pictures with numerous films to her credit. She is a frequent contributor to Irish America Magazine and has twice been named one of the Top 100 Irish Americans and on the Top 100 Global Irish.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the Irish Studies Program and the MFA in Creative Writing
Tuesday, March 29, 2016 at 7:30 p.m.
Rev. James Martin, SJ Seven Last Words
Egan Chapel of St. Ignatius Loyola – Fairfield University
New York Times bestselling author James Martin, SJ, offers a vivid and compelling portrait of Jesus based on the Messiah's dramatic last words on the cross. Father Martin shows how deeply Jesus understands our struggles and why we can turn to him completely—in mind, heart, and soul. Based on Martin's homilies at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral on Good Friday 2015, each mediation reflects on one of the seven traditional sayings:
"Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" "Woman, here is your son. . . . Here is your mother." "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." "I am thirsty.” “It is finished.”
With warmth, wisdom, and grace that infuse all of his writings, Father Martin explains why Jesus's words from the cross are so important for the life of the believer. For Jesus's final statements show how deeply Jesus understands our human struggles and why we can turn to him completely, sharing all our hopes and fears with him.
"Spiritually rewarding and uplifting." —Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York
Rev. James Martin, SJ is editor at large of America magazine, and bestselling author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, and Between Heaven and Mirth. Father Martin has written for many publications, is a regular commentator in the national and international media and he has appeared on all the major radio and television networks, as well as in venues ranging from NPR’s Fresh Air, FOX’s The O’Reilly Factor, and PBS’s NewsHour to Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by The Center for Ignatian Spirituality and so-sponsored by Campus Ministry, the College of Arts & Sciences, and the Center for Catholic Studies.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at 7 p.m.
Michael C. White Resting Places
Dolan School of Business Dining Room – Fairfield University
After receiving the devastating news of her son’s death, Elizabeth travels cross-country to the site of his death in the hope of understanding what had happened. During the trip, she undergoes a transformation, one which allows her to confront the demons of her past but also to acknowledge the possibilities of her future. Through the wisdom and kindness of a man she meets along the way, she finds a means not only of dealing with her pain and guilt, but of opening herself to the redemptive power of love. Resting Places is an inspiring, upbeat story, a tale of real faith in what we cannot see except with our hearts.
“Resting Places takes the readers into that most feared of landscapes: the difficult terrain where a parent must grieve the loss of a child. But Michael C. White is a masterful storyteller and a deft tour guide who interfaces this meditation on sorrow and death with a classic but contemporary quest story.” – Wally Lamb, author of She’s Come Undone
Michael C. White is the author of six previous novels, including Beautiful Assassin, which won the 2011 Connecticut Book Award for Fiction and Soul Catcher, which was a Booksense and Historical Novels Review selection, as well as a collection of short stories, Marked Men. He was the founding editor of the yearly fiction anthology American Fiction as well as Dogwood. He teaches at Fairfield University and in its MFA program.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing and the College of Arts & Sciences
Wednesday, April 13, 2016 at 7 p.m.
Yohuru Williams Rethinking the Black Freedom Movement (American Social and Political Movements of the 20th Century)
Dolan School of Business Dining Room – Fairfield University
The African American struggle for civil rights in the twentieth century is one of the most important stories in American history. With all the information available, however, it is easy for even the most enthusiastic reader to be overwhelmed. In Rethinking the Black Freedom Movement, Yohuru Williams has synthesized the complex history of this period into a clear and compelling narrative. Considering both the Civil Rights and Black Power movements as distinct but overlapping elements of the Black Freedom struggle, Williams looks at the impact of the struggle for Black civil rights on housing, transportation, education, labor, voting rights, culture, and more, and places the activism of the 1950s and 60s within the context of a much longer tradition reaching from Reconstruction to the present day.
Dr. Yohuru Williams is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of History at Fairfield University
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Program in Black Studies: Africa and the Diaspora.
Thursday, September 17, 2015 at 7 p.m.
Michael McGregor Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
Pure Act tells the story of poet Robert Lax, whose quest to live a true life as both an artist and a spiritual seeker inspired Thomas Merton, Jack Kerouac, William Maxwell and a host of other writers, artists and ordinary people. Known in the U.S. primarily as Merton’s best friend and in Europe as a daringly original avant-garde poet, Lax left behind a promising New York writing career to travel with a circus, live among immigrants in post-war Marseilles and settle on a series of remote Greek islands where he learned and recorded the simple wisdom of the local people.
Michael McGregor is a Professor of English and Creative Writing and a former Director of the MFA in Creative Writing program at Portland State University and is a member of Biographers International Organization and the Thomas Merton Society.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing, the Center for Catholic Studies and the Learning for a Lifetime Program.
Wednesday, September 23 at 7 p.m.
Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel Wabanaki Blues
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
In the first book of a planned trilogy, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, tells the story of Mona Lisa LaPierre, a 17-year-old blues musician. When her parents send her to live with her grandfather in New Hampshire, she solves a cold case murder and discovers her special place in the universe. She also finds that to achieve what she most wants, she must sacrifice what she most loves.
“a wonderfully funny, wise novel that is partly love story, part mystery and part coming of age. Her savvy, intelligently funny writing is music for the soul.” – Karen Osborn, author of Centerville
Melissa Tantaguidgeon Zobel is an alumna of the Fairfield University MFA in Creative Writing and is a citizen of the Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut. Melissa spent her childhood learning ancient indigenous stories and traditions from her Mohegan tribal elders and writes fiction and non-fiction about the extraordinary world of the Native Americans of New England.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing.
Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 7 p.m. Stefany Shaheen Elle & Coach: Diabetes, the Fight for My Daughter’s Life and the Dog Who Changed Everything
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
Stefany Shaheen’s touching memoir, Elle & Coach: Diabetes, the Fight For My Daughter’s Life, and the Dog Who Changed Everything, co-authored by Mark Dagostino, is the inspiring true story of a family in need, a mother’s love for her daughter, and the power of the animal-human connection. Most of all, this book is about finding hope in the most unlikely of places.
An extraordinary testament of a mother’s love and advocacy for her child, Elle & Coach tells the story of a remarkable young girl’s optimism in the face of true hardship and is a moving, must-read book for any person learning to live with chronic illness or overcome any kind of overwhelming adversity.
“This book is much more than a heartwarming story about a triumphant little girl and her amazing dog. It’s a book about never giving up hope.” —Michael J. Fox, actor, producer, and activist
Stefany Shaheen, an alumna of Fairfield University, has dedicated herself to making life better for people living with diabetes. She is on the Board of Trustees at Joslin Diabetes Center, served as the National Chair for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Children’s Congress, and currently serves on the Foundation’s Research and Advocacy Committee. Mark Dagostino is a New York Times bestselling coauthor and former senior writer for People magazine.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing, the Office of Alumni Relations, the School of Nursing and the Learning for a Lifetime program.
Wednesday, September 30 at 7 p.m
Baron Wormser Unidentified Sighing Objects
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
In his tenth collection of poems, Baron Wormser continues a poetic journey begun more than three decades ago—a journey that has traversed the quotidian and the unexpected with equal measures of insight, emotion, and lyric grace. He delivers his own brand of everyday realism, shaped by the wisdom gained from a lifetime viewed through an expectant eye. Man falls, Wormser tells us. But, he also rises.
From sports to art, from childhood to death, Wormser’s poetic purview is all-embracing and ever curious about the world we inhabit. Whether writing of Diane Arbus or Andy Warhol, the Nuremberg trials or the fall of the Berlin Wall, jazz or the Dave Clark Five, he lends humor and wisdom to the quest for meaning each of us endures.
Baron Wormser is the author of eight books of poetry, a memoir and a collection of short stories. He is Director of Educational Outreach at the Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire and has served as poet laureate of Maine from 2000 to 2005.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by by the MFA in Creative Writing, the department of English and the Learning for a Lifetime program.
Thursday, October 15 at 7 p.m.
Toby Svoboda Duties Regarding Nature: A Kantian Environmental Ethic
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
In his book, Toby Svoboda develops and defends a Kantian environmental virtue ethic, challenging the widely-held view that Kant's moral philosophy has little to offer environmental ethics. On the contrary, Svoboda contends that on Kantian grounds, there is good moral reason to care about non-human organisms in their own right and to value their flourishing independently of human interests, since doing so is constitutive of certain (environmental) virtues.
Toby Svoboda is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Fairfield University, USA. His work on animal and environmental ethics has been published in Environmental Values, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, and Ethics, Policy & Environment, among other journals.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the College of Arts & Sciences, the Department of Philosophy and the Learning for a Lifetime program.
Thursday, October 22 at 7 p.m.
Gene Baur Living The Farm Sanctuary Life: The Ultimate Guide to Eating Mindfully, Living Longer, and Feeling Better Every Day
Aloysius P. Kelley Center Presentation Room, Fairfield University
Gene Baur, the cofounder and president of Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, knows the key to happiness lies in aligning your beliefs with your actions. In this definitive vegan and animal-friendly lifestyle guide, he and Gene Stone, author of Forks Over Knives, explore the deeply transformative experience of visiting the sanctuary and its profound effects on people’s lives. The book covers the basic tenets of Farm Sanctuary life--eating in harmony with your values, connecting with nature, and reducing stress--and offers readers simple ways to incorporate these principles into their lives.
“Living the Farm Sanctuary Life gives really good advice as to how we can make this a better world for farm animals and for ourselves as well.” - Jane Goodall
To reserve a seat, please email Elizabeth Hastings at ehastings@fairfield.edu.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing and Fairfield Public Library and co-sponsored by the department of Environmental Studies
Tuesday, November 3 at 7 p.m.
Chris Belden Shriver
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
Mistaken for a famous but reclusive author of the same name, lonely Shriver attends a writers’ conference at a small Midwestern liberal arts college. Completely unfamiliar with the novel he supposedly wrote and utterly unprepared for the magnitude of the reputation that precedes him, Shriver is feted, fawned over, featured at stuffy literary panels, and barely manages to play it cool. Things quickly go awry when one of the other guest authors suddenly disappears and Shriver becomes a prime suspect in the investigation. Amidst eager fans, Shriver must contend with a persistent police detective, a pesky journalist determined to unearth his past, and a mysterious and possibly dangerous stalker who seems to know his secret. But most vexing of all, Shriver’s gone and fallen in love with the conference organizer, who believes he’s someone else.
"Chris Belden's Shriver is as hilarious and smart as Michael Malone's Foolscap, as wise and sympathetic as Stoner. Academic farces don't come any better." -- Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls
Chris Belden, author, musician and teacher, is the author of the novels Shriver and Carry-on, & the story collection The Floating Lady of Lake Tawaba, which won the Fairfield/New Rivers Book Prize. Chris is an alumnus of the Fairfield University MFA in Creative Writing.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing
Thursday, November 12 at 7 p.m.
Colin D. Halloran Icarian Flux
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
Colin D. Halloran, a combat veteran of Afghanistan, is an internationally published poet, essayist, and artist. His debut collection, Shortly Thereafter, a memoir-in-verse documenting his experiences on the front lines of Afghanistan and the impact they had on him when returning to civilian life, won the 2012 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and was declared a Massachusetts Must-Read Book of 2013. His follow-up collection, Icarian Flux, picks up where Shortly Thereafter left off, exploring his post-military life with PTSD. However, Icarian Flux leaves behind the direct narrative non-fiction style. It relies on experimental narration and form, metaphor, and, most prominently, persona to delve into the highs and lows of a changed worldview and understanding of the self.
Halloran holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University, where he now teaches.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing.
Thursday, November 19 at 7 p.m.
Lynne Porter Unmasking Theatre Design
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
Every great design has its beginnings in a great idea, whether your medium of choice is scenery, costume, lighting, sound, or projections. Unmasking Theatre Design shows you how to cultivate creative thinking skills through every step of theatre design--from the first play reading to the finished design presentation. This book reveals how creative designers think in order to create unique and appropriate works for individual productions. Revealing the inner workings of the design process, both theoretically and practically, Unmasking Theatre Design will jumpstart the creative processes of designers at all levels, from student to professionals, as you construct new production designs.
Lynne Porter, a professional scenic designer, is a Professor of Theater and the Resident Designer in the Theatre Program at Fairfield University, where she teaches, administrates and designs. She is currently the Director of the Theatre Program in the Visual and Performing Arts Department.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the College of Arts & Sciences, the Department of Visual and Performing Arts and the Learning for a Lifetime program.
Thursday, May 7 at 7 pm Julia Glass And The Dark Sacred Night
Barone Campus Center Oak Room – Fairfield University
In this richly detailed novel about the quest for an unknown father, Julia Glass weaves together the lives of Kit, Jasper, Lucinda and ultimately, Fenno McLeod, the beloved protagonist of Three Junes (now in his sixties), immersing readers in a panorama that stretches from suburban New Jersey to rural Vermont and ultimately to the tip of Cape Cod. And the Dark Sacred Night is an exquisitely memorable tale about the youthful choices that steer our destinies, the necessity of forgiveness, and the risks we take when we face down the shadows from our past.
Julia Glass is the author ofThree Junes, winner of the 2002 National Book Award for Fiction; The Whole World Over; I See You Everywhere, winner of the 2009 Binghamton University John Gardner Book Award; and The Widower’s Tale. Her essays have been widely anthologized. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Glass also teaches fiction writing, most frequently at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
This event is free and open to the public. Presented by the MFA in Creative Writing.
Monday, February 23 at 7 pm Jonathan Petropoulos Artists Under Hitler: Collaboration and Survival in Nazi Germany
The Walsh Art Gallery - Quick Center for the Arts – Fairfield University
Artists Under Hitler closely examines cases of artists who failed in their attempts to find accommodation with the regime (Walter Gropius, Paul Hindemith, Gottfried Benn, Ernst Barlach, Emil Nolde), as well as others whose desire for official acceptance was realized (Richard Strauss, Gustaf Gründgens, Leni Riefenstahl, Arno Breker, Albert Speer). Taken together, these ten figures illuminate the hidden cultural history of Nazi Germany, while individually providing haunting portraits of people facing excruciating life choices and grave moral and aesthetic questions. Their personal stories provide a radically new way of coming to grips with a regime which Hitler sought to make a “dictatorship of genius.” It is a story, by turns, of despair and determination, of illusion and reality, of hope and tragedy.
"A persuasive, nuanced and surprising picture of German culture under the Nazis." - Kirkus Review
Jonathan Petropoulos is the John V. Croul Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of four books, including Art as Politics in the Third Reich and The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany. He also served as Research Director for Art and Cultural Property on the Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States, and has been engaged as an expert witness in a number of Holocaust-era art restitution cases.
This event is free and open to the public. Presented by the MFA in Creative Writing, the departments of Visual and Performing Arts, History, Judaic Studies, and the Learning for a Lifetime Program.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015 at 7 pm Joseph Valerio Second to None: The Relentless Drive and Impossible Dream of the Super Bowl Bills
Fairfield University Bookstore 499 Post Road, Fairfield CT
In Second to None, Joe Valerio tells the incredible story of the Buffalo Bills: the perpetual almost-champions and their indomitable fans. The Bills' incredible skill and teamwork on the field was matched only by their single-minded determination as, in the four years spanning 1991 to 1994, the team won four consecutive conference championships, and lost four consecutive Super Bowls. The peaks and nadirs of their record reflect a fascinatingly dynamic, uneven, and—at times—uncontrollable array of talents. Valerio renders in sharp detail how the Bills' unique culture was formed by an unlikely ecosystem of world-class athletes hunkered down in bleak western New York, far away from the celebrity playgrounds of other pro teams. Meticulously researched and carefully crafted, this one-of-a-kind look inside the Super Bowl-era Buffalo Bills is based on extensive interviews with the key players, coaches, and management, including Hall of Famers Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith, as well as coach Marv Levy, general manager Bill Polian, and many others, including players and coaches from opposing teams, and the reporters who covered them.
Wednesday, April 15 at 7 pm Rachel Basch The Listener
Fairfield University Bookstore 499 Post Road, Fairfield CT
The Listener explores the ways in which we conceal and reveal our identities. In the novel, Malcolm Dowd is almost positive he recognizes the freshman who shows up for a session at his office in Baxter College's Center for Behavioral Health he just can't place her. When suddenly she stands, takes off her wig, and reveals herself as Noah, the young man Malcolm had been treating months earlier, it marks the start of a relationship that will change them both.
“Rachel Basch writes with great insight and a big heart.” –Ann Hood, bestselling author of The Knitting Circle.
Rachel Basch is the author of The Passion of Reverend Nash, Degrees of Love, and The Listener. She has reviewed books for The Washington Post Book World, and her nonfiction has appeared in n+1, Parenting, and The Huffington Post. In 2011, Basch was a MacDowell Colony Fellow. She currently teaches in Fairfield University’s MFA Program and in Wesleyan University’s Graduate Liberal Studies Program.
This event is free and open to the public. Presented by the MFA in Creative Writing and the Learning for a Lifetime Program.
Monday, April 20 at 5:30 pm Hollis Seamon Somebody Up There Hates You: Writing For Your Life
Barone Campus Center Oak Room – Fairfield University
Smart-mouthed and funny, and sometimes raunchy, seventeen-year-old Richard Casey is in most ways a typical teenager. Except Richie has cancer, and he‘s spending his final days in a hospice unit where the only other hospice resident under sixty is Sylvie. Lucky for Richie, Sylvie possesses a fiery spirit and a beauty that shines through even the grim lens of her disease. Over the course of several days on the hospice floor, a sweet relationship blossoms between them in perhaps the last place one would ever expect to see romantic love.
“Even in hospice, a lot can happen in a short time…Being near death doesn’t mean abandoning hope for the life that remains.” –Publisher’s Weekly
A recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fiction Fellowship, Hollis is Professor of English at the College of Saint Rose in Albany NY and teaches for the Fairfield University MFA in Creative Writing Program. She lives in Kinderhook NY.
This event is free and open to the public. Presented by the Humanities Institute, MFA in Creative Writing, School of Nursing, Core Writing and Department of English.
Thursday, April 23 at 5 pm Michael Sweeney, Octagon of Commonweal
Fairfield University Bookstore 499 Post Road, Fairfield CT
“Mike Sweeney’s Octagon Commonweal is an engaging and combative volume of quips and koans.” -Sidney Gottlieb, Professor of Communication, Sacred Heart University; Go-Dan, Isshinryu Karate-do
Michael Sweeney, a two-time Pushcart nominee, earned his MFA from Brooklyn College and was a long-time student of Isshinryu Modes Karate. His collection In Memory of the Fast Break (Plain View Press, 2008) was a Finalist and Must-Read selection for the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s 2009 Massbooks of the Year/Poetry Awards.
This event is free and open to the public. Presented by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English and the Learning for a Lifetime Program.
Thursday, October 2 at 7 p.m. Nicholas Rinaldi The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb
Aloysius P. Kelley Center Presentation Room - Fairfield University
The long-awaited fourth novel that truly lives up to the superlative title, from a critically-acclaimed, award-winning novelist and poet, Nicholas Rinaldi has finally arrived. His last novel, Between Two Rivers earned praise from the Boston Globe: "vivid, elegiac...wryly humorous and periodically heart-rending." Of his second novel, The Jukebox Queen of Malta, the New York Times exclaimed: "Joseph Heller, William Styron, Norman Mailer...Rinaldi belongs in their company." Rinaldi, is an emeritus professor of English at Fairfield University and has also been honored as Artist of the Year by the Fairfield Arts Council.
"Rinaldi imaginatively blends fact and fiction in this breezy 19th-century historical.... top-notch entertainment." -Publishers Weekly
This event, presented by the MFA in Creative Writing and the department of English, is free and open to the public.
Monday, October 6 at 7 p.m. Trudy Dujardin Comfort Zone: Creating The Eco-Elegant Interior
Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, CT
Trudy Dujardin is nationally known for her passion for eco-elegance, as well as award-winning interiors that combine sophistication, elegant use of color, and an intuitive understanding of her clients' lifestyles. Her graceful approach reflects a deep respect for Historic Preservation, the surrounding landscape, and abundant comfort. Based on her belief that a healthy home is the ultimate luxury, she is a LEED Accredited Professional with a specialty in Interior Design and Construction.
Trudy serves on Traditional Home Magazine's Green Advisory Panel, has written a column, Gently Green, for Nantucket-based Portfolio Magazine, and is a member of the advisory board of atHome Magazine. Her breathtaking interiors have appeared in the most prestigious industry publications.
This event, free and open to the public, is presented by Fairfield University's Interior Design program
Wednesday, October 8 at 6:30 p.m. Adriana Páramo Memoirs of Immigration
Aloysius P. Kelley Center Presentation Room - Fairfield University
A cultural anthropologist, writer, and women’s rights advocate, Páramo is the author of Looking for Esperanza: The Story of a Mother, a Child Lost, and Why They Matter to Us, winner of the 2011 Benu Press Social Justice and Equity Award in Creative Nonfiction. Páramo immersed herself in the world of undocumented women toiling in the Florida fields to explore the story of an immigrant mother who walked the desert from Mexico to the U.S. Páramo is also the author of a memoir, My Mother’s Funeral, a memoir in which she recreates her Colombian mother’s life in order to understand her own.
This event, free and open to the public, is part of the Politics & Memoir series, supported by the Humanities Institute in the College of Arts and Sciences, the MFA Program, the Writing Center, the History Department, the Sociology and Anthropology Department, the Politics Department, the English Department, the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, the Office of Service Learning, and the Center for Faith and Public Life.
Wednesday, November 12 at 7 pm David Crawford Nostalgia for the Present: Ethnography and Photography in a Moroccan Berber Village Fairfield University Bookstore
Depicting a portrait of everyday life in the contemporary High Atlas village, Tagharghist, Nostalgia for the Present is both a memorialization of a people and a way of life. A collaboration between an ethnographer, a photographer, a group of Moroccan farmers, and Abdelkrim Bamouh – a native intellectual and translator, this book seeks to repair the relationship between anthropology and photography. The photos evoke a sense of nostalgia, a longing, while the words explore the contexts and ambiguities that visualize it. Nostalgia happens in our present, and is about our future.
Dave Crawford is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Fairfield University. He received his B.A. in American Studies from Cal State University Fullerton, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also studied at the London School of Economics.
This event is free and open to the public and presented by the College of Arts and Sciences and the departments of Sociology and Anthropology.
Thursday, November 13 at 1:30 pm Vernona Gomez Lefty: An American Odyssey
Fairfield University Bookstore - 1499 Post Road, Fairfield
The life of Vernon "Lefty" Gomez is the story of baseball. He was welcomed to the New York Yankees by Babe Ruth, roomed with Joe DiMaggio, consoled Lou Gehrig the day the "Iron Horse" pulled himself from the line-up, started and won the first All Star game, journeyed to Japan on Major League Baseball's great ambassador tour, won six World Series games without losing one, and had collegiate baseball's top award named after him -- all while becoming a pilot, playing an impressive sax, and hobnobbing with the great entertainers of the day. Drawing upon never-before-published photos and material, this unique American story is vividly recreated by the authors. Lefty has garnered critical acclaim, and was a top pick by Sports Illustrated, The New York Post, and ESPN’s Mike Greenberg.
Vernona Gomez is the daughter of the Hall of Fame pitcher and June O’Dea, the Broadway headliner. The co-author of Lefty: An American Odyssey, Vernona bounced on the knee of Babe Ruth, made sand castles with Joe DiMaggio, and tagged along with her parents to numerous All-Star, World Series, and Old-Timers’ games. A concert pianist, Vernona made her debut at Carnegie Recital Hall at the age of 8.
This event is free and open to the public. Presented by the Learning for a Lifetime Program
Tuesday, December 2 at 7 p.m. Elizabeth Dreyer Accidental Theologians: Four Women Who Shaped Christianity
Fairfield University Bookstore - 1499 Post Road, Fairfield
Four women—Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, and Thérèse of Lisieux—have been honored with the title “Doctor of the Church.” But what does that title mean and what do these women mean for us today?
Elizabeth Dreyer examines the history-changing effect each of their unique theologies have had on our Church and our world. She explains how our understanding of the cross, the incarnation, the Holy Spirit, and the human person have been enhanced by the work of these women. They may not have planned to be thought of as theologians, but reading about their lives, teaching, and writings will have a profound effect on how you live your faith.
This event, free and open to the public, is presented by the College of Arts and Sciences and the department of Religious Studies.
Wednesday, December 10 at 7 pm Sandra Nunnerley Interiors
Fairfield University Bookstore - 1499 Post Road, Fairfield
Sandra Nunnerley is one of the most fashionable international interior designers, working with the structural rhythms of interior spaces, furnishings and art works.
Her company has been featured in the Architectural Digest 100 list of the world's top designers and architects, and she has worked on prestigious residential interior design commissions around the world ranging from urban apartments and town houses to tropical getaways, country homes and estates for more than 20 years.
This sumptuous new book chronicles those exquisite projects and beautiful interiors arising from her design vision and a wide variety of inspirations. She shares how her globe-spanning travels have influenced her work and thoughts on design, suggesting how we might also look at the world around us to arrive at our own design approach.
New Zealand-born interior designer Sandra Nunnerley lives in New York City, where she runs a design studio specializing in high-end residential projects. W magazine has called her one of the most fashionable designers, she has been featured in Architectural Digest's list of the 100 most influential designers, and House & Garden (UK) named her in their international guide of leading designers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The World of Interiors, Elle Decor, and Vogue Living.
This event, free and open to the public, is presented by Fairfield University's Interior Design program
Monday, March 10, 2014 at 5 p.m.
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing Anya Von Bremzen
Dolan School of Business, dining room, Fairfield University
For all you foodies – the perfect foodoir. Anya Von Bremzen, known for writing about extravagant delicacies in far-flung places around the world, paints a beet-stained picture of what life was like growing up in Russia through the rule of Stalin, Lenin, Khruschev, and Gorbachev before emigrating to America. Each chapter of the book is a collection of von Bremzen family anecdotes, with recipes sprinkled throughout. She has received three James Beard Awards and authored five cookbooks.
This event is presented by the Russian and East European Studies Program and co-sponsored by the programs of Peace and Justice Studies, International Studies, Judaic Studies, MFA in Creative Writing, and the departments of English, Politics, and the Carl and Dorothy Bennett Center for Jewish Studies.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014 at 7 p.m.
Teach Us That Peace Baron Wormser
Fairfield University Bookstore - Post Road, Fairfield
Baron Wormser celebrates the release of his first novel, Teach Us That Peace with a reading and book signing. The novel “opens a door on a dramatic American moment when a vision of racial harmony began to be more than a dream.” Lewis Robinson, author of Water Dogs, writes, “Teach Us That Peace is so much more than a mediation on the past. With controlled intensity, visual clarity, and emotional precision, Baron Wormser’s unveiling of 1960s Baltimore helps us discern our present world. The storytelling here is exquisite—and completely invigorating.”
Baron Wormser is the author of eight books of poetry, a memoir and a collection of short stories. He is Director of Educational Outreach at the Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire and has served as poet laureate of Maine from 2000 to 2005.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing program.
Thursday, March 13, 2014 at 7 p.m.
I Am Venus Barbara Mujica
Fairfield University Bookstore - Post Road, Fairfield
Award-winning author Barbara Mujica celebrates her newest novel I Am Venus with a reading and book signing. I Am Venus is a sweeping and vivid recreation of a corrupt kingdom on the brink of collapse revolving around the mystery surrounding The Rokeby Venus, the only extant female nude by Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. Reminiscent of Girl with a Pearl Earring, it is a thrilling novel that brings to life the public and private worlds of Spain’s greatest painter. Bárbara Mujica is a novelist, essayist, short story writer and critic. I Am Venus was a winner of the 2012 Maryland Writers’ Association Fiction Competition in the category Historical Fiction. Kirkus Reviews writes: “Mujica’s prose is vigorous and intense, and the story is paradoxically both dark and illuminating.”
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. An Evening with Stephan Rea
Fairfield University Quick Center for the Arts
Award winning Irish actor, Stephan Rea reads from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Rea is an Irish film and stage actor who was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Rea has appeared in high profile films such as V for Vendetta, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire, and Breakfast on Pluto. Rea was nominated for an Academy for his lead performance as Fergus in the 1992 film The Crying Game.
Presented by the Fairfield University Irish Studies program. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by visiting the Quick Center website
Thursday, April 3, 2014 at 7 p.m.
Saving Troy and The Call of Nursing William Patrick
Kelley Center Presentation Room, Fairfield University
Join us for a reading and book signing with award-winning author Bill Patrick. His works have been published or produced in a number of genres: creative nonfiction, poetry, fiction, screenwriting, and drama. His latest book, The Call of Nursing: Voices from the Front Lines of Health Care, published in May of 2013, presents twenty-three occupational portraits that reveal a profession which often hides in plain sight. Saving Troy is a creative nonfiction chronicle of a year spent riding along with professional firefighters and paramedics. From that experience, Patrick also wrote a screenplay, Fire Ground, as well as a radio play, Rescue, which was commissioned by the BBC and aired on BBC 3.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing program and the Egan School of Nursing.
Sunday, April 6, 2014 from Noon to 3 p.m.
From Tragedy to Triumph John Tartaglio
Fairfield University Bookstore - Post Road, Fairfield
Join us for a meet and greet with Fairfield alumni, John Tartaglio and Andrew Chapin, co-authors of From Tragedy to Triumph. At the age of 17, John Tartaglio was diagnosed with an extremely rare bacterial infection that left him amputated up to his hipbones. John triumphed over his disability, while at Fairfield University, and became the first person in history to run and complete a 5k and 10k road race without legs, and he later made history running the 26.2 New York City marathon. John’s story is one of true inspiration.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the Department of Biology and Department of Student Programs and Leadership Development.
Friday, May 16, 2014 at 7 p.m.
All The Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr
Gonzaga Auditorium, Fairfield University
Award-winning author Anthony Doerr celebrates his newest novel All The Light We Cannot See with a reading and book signing. Simon and Schuster write, it is “a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Doerr’s gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work.” Anthony Doerr's books have been a NY Times Notable Book, an American Library Association Book of the Year, a 'Book of the Year' in the Washington Post, and he has won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, the Rome Prize, the Story Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Ohioana Book Award three times. Doerr's stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by by the MFA in Creative Writing program and the Fairfield Public library.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014 at 7 p.m.
I Am Pilgrim Terry Hayes
Gonzaga Auditorium, Fairfield University
Terry Hayes celebrates the American debut of his book, I Am Pilgrim, with a reading and book signing. I Am Pilgrim is the astonishing story of one man’s breakneck race against time…and an implacable enemy."I Am Pilgrim is a 21st century thriller: a high concept plot, but with finely drawn protagonists. The plot twists and turns like a python in a sack. The style is visceral, gritty and cinematic...A satisfying and ambitious book, written with skill and verve."
(Adam LeBor The Times, UK) Terry Hayes began his career as a journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald, when as foreign correspondent in the US he covered Watergate and President Nixon's resignation, among many major international stories. He then went on to become a successful screenwriter, having written the screenplays for Mad Max 2, Dead Calm, Bangkok Hilton, Payback and From Hell.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing program and the Fairfield Public library.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013 at 7 p.m.
Contagious Optimism: Uplifting Stories and Motivational Advice for Positive Forward Thinking David Mezzapelle
Fairfield University Bookstore
Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at 7 p.m.
Help For The Haunted John Searles Fairfield University Bookstore - Post Road, Fairfield
John Searles, author of the best-selling novels Boy Still Missing and Strange But True, will sign and read from his latest work, Help for the Haunted, the story of a couple with an unusual occupation - helping "haunted souls" find peace. Lured to a church on the outskirts of town, they disappear, leaving their daughter Sylvie to put together the pieces of this mystery and discover deep family secrets and a harrowing tragedy. Critics have compared Searles' writing to both the vivid eeriness of Stephen King and the quirky tenderness of John Irving.
Editor-at-large of Cosmopolitan, Searles is a regular book critic for NBC's Today Show and CBS' The Early Show. He has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Daily Beast, among other publications.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing and the Fairfield University Bookstore.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013 at 7 p.m.
Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff Cathryn J. Prince Fairfield University Bookstore - Post Road, Fairfield
Fairfield University alumna Cathryn J. Prince, winner of the Connecticut Press Club's 2011 Book Award in Non-Fiction, will talk about her latest book, Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, that chronicles the harrowing story of the worst maritime disaster in modern history, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. A former Nazi cruise ship, the vessel was carrying more than 10,000 German civilians out of harm's way as the Russian Army closed in on the Third Reich in January 1945. Soon after the boat left port, it was struck by three Soviet torpedoes and about 9,400 women, children, elderly and ill - six times the number lost on the Titanic - were killed.
Prince was a longtime contributing correspondent to The Christian Science Monitor, and she also writes for Weston Magazine, Ridgefield Magazine, Child, and Brain, among other publications.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing and the American Studies Department.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013 at 7 p.m.
Somebody Up There Hates You Hollis Seamon Kelley Center Presentation Room, Fairfield University
Hollis Seamon, celebrates the release of her acclaimed new novel, "Somebody Up There Hates You". Receiving advance starred reviews from both Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews says: "Each character is vividly drawn, with a sharp, memorable voice that readers will love and remember... A fresh, inspiring story." Seamon is also the author of a "Flesh" "Body Work" and "Corporeality". She has published short stories in many journals, including Bellevue Literary Review, Greensboro Review, Fiction International, amongst others and she is a recipient of a fiction fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing and the American Studies Department and is free and open to the public.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013 at 6 p.m.
An Evening with Paul Muldoon Dolan School of Business dining room, Fairfield University
Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and renowned author of more than 30 books of poetry, including Moy Sand and Gravel and Meeting the British will present some of his most recent work. He is the Howard G. B. Clark '21 Professor of Humanities at Princeton University and the poetry editor of the New Yorker. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as a recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature for 1996; the 2003 Pulitzer Prize; the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry; the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award; amongst many others, Muldoon has been described by The Times Literary Supplement as "the most significant English-language poet since the second World War."
This event offers free inspiration for writers. It is open to the public and is presented by yhe Irish Studies Program and co-sponsored by the Humanities Institute of the College of Arts and Sciences, the MFA in Creative Writing and Department of English. This event is free and open to the public.
Tuesday, April 26 at 7 p.m.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016 at 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016 at 7 p.m.
Thursday, September 17, 2015 at 7 p.m. 
Wednesday, September 23 at 7 p.m. 
Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, September 30 at 7 p.m
Thursday, October 22 at 7 p.m.
Tuesday, November 3 at 7 p.m.
Thursday, November 12 at 7 p.m.
Thursday, November 19 at 7 p.m.
Thursday, May 7 at 7 pm
Monday, February 23 at 7 pm
Wednesday, March 25, 2015 at 7 pm
Wednesday, April 15 at 7 pm
Monday, April 20 at 5:30 pm
Thursday, April 23 at 5 pm 
Thursday, October 2 at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, October 8 at 6:30 p.m.
Wednesday, November 12 at 7 pm
Thursday, November 13 at 1:30 pm
Tuesday, December 2 at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, December 10 at 7 pm
Thursday, April 3, 2014 at 7 p.m.
