On Thursday, Jan. 16, 2008 the author Jennifer Haigh will be reading from her upcoming novel, "The Condition in the Wren Room," in Sanborn House as part of the English Department's Creative Writing Poetry and Prose Series.
Harper Collins will publish the author's third novel this June. Her debut novel, "Mrs. Kimble," won the PEN/ Hemingway Award in 2006 and her second, "Baker Towers," won critical acclaim nationwide.
The New York Times compared her rendering of small-town, mid-nineteenth century America in "Baker Towers" to Richard Russo's "Empire Falls."
The Washington Post praised her mastery of "the community portrait" in "Towers," which describes the journeys of five children as they struggle to find a way out of a mining town and towards the American dream.
In addition to these longer works of fiction, she has published short stories in Good Housekeeping, the Hartford Courant, Alaska Quarterly Review and Virginia Quarterly Review.
Haigh holds degrees from Dickinson College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her lecture is primarily intended to benefit the the students taking creative writing courses who will attend the reading and discussion.
Future authors in the English Department's series will include the author Ron Padgett, who will visit Jan. 24; the poet Peter Campion '98 with the Director of Alice James Books April Ossman on Feb. 21; and Star Lawrence on Feb. 28.
Brittany Crosby '09, a student in Professor Cleopatra Matthis' creative writing course, appreciates the opportunity to meet a successful author as a cure for writer's block.
"There's always a background or subtext that you can only get through talking to the author. Of course, the work can stand on its own," Crosby said. "But there's something wonderful about hearing a poem or excerpt in the voice of the author...listening to where he or she pauses, the pacing, the intonations. That's something you don't get when you are reading silently to yourself."
