Novelist and short story writer Rebecca Makkai, author most recently of The Great Believers, visits George Mason University on Thursday, February 28, at part of the Creative Writing Program’s Spring 2019 Visiting Writer Series, hosted for the first time this semester by George Mason University Libraries.
Makkai’s latest novel, The Great Believers, has become one of the most highly acclaimed books of last year. Set in both 1980s New York and in Paris thirty years later, the novel charts the impact and the legacy of the AIDS epidemic. It won both the Andrew Carnegie Medal and the Stonewall Book Award; was short-listed for the National Book Award; and was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, which called it “A page turner… An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis.” The book has recently been optioned by Amy Poehler for a television adaptation.
Makkai is also the author of the novels The Borrower and The Hundred-Year House and of the collection Music for Wartime—four stories from which appeared in The Best American Short Stories. The recipient of a 2014 NEA Fellowship, she has taught at the Tin House Writers' Conference and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and is currently on the faculty of the MFA programs at Sierra Nevada College and Northwestern University. She is the artistic director of StoryStudio Chicago. Her website is www.rebeccamakkai.com.
Makkai’s reading will take place on Thursday, February 28, at 7:30 p.m. in the Fenwick Library Reading Room, Room 2001, Fenwick Library on George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus. The reading is open to the public.
The Visiting Writer Series continues throughout the spring, with all readings in the Fenwick Reading Room:
- Ilya Kaminsky (Poetry)—Thursday, March 21, 7:30 p.m.
- Ed Roberson (Poetry)—Monday, April 8, 7:30 p.m.
- Jane Brox (Nonfiction)—Wednesday, April 10, 7:30 p.m.
- Jamel Brinkley (Fiction)—Friday, April 12, 5 p.m.
February 25, 2019
