AUTHOR TALKS
JENNIFER EGAN
Thursday, March 19, 7:00 PM, Commonwealth Auditorium, Free
Reception & Book Signing to Follow
Jennifer Egan is the author of several novels and a short story collection. Her 2017 novel, Manhattan Beach, a New York Times bestseller, was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and was chosen as New York City’s One Book One New York read. Her previous novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times book prize, and was named one of the best books of the decade by Time Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, and several others. Also a journalist, she has written frequently in the New York Times Magazine. She recently completed a term as President of PEN America. Her latest novel is, The Candy House, a sibling to A Visit From the Goon Squad.
Presented in partnership with the W&M Hayes Writers Series
KYLE CARRERO LOPEZ
Tuesday, March 17, 7:00 PM, PBK Hall Studio Theater, Free
Reception to Follow
Kyle Carrero Lopez (W&M ‘17) is the author of PARTY LINE, out this July with Graywolf Press, a Cave Canem fellow, and serves as Editor for the Poetry Project’s quarterly publication, the Newsletter. His poetry & prose is published in The Yale Review, New York Magazine, The Nation, POETRY, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He's worked as a reader or judge for numerous literary prizes, most recently the 2026 Derricotte/Eady Chapbook Prize and the 2023 F(r)iction Spring Writing Contest.
Kyle will also facilitate an Industry Summit workshop, Literary Journal and Magazine Submissions: The Ins & Outs.
Presented in partnership with the W&M Hayes Writers Series
HOW A NOVEL GETS MADE: FROM IDEA TO PUBLICATION
Wednesday, March 18, 2:00 PM, PBK Hall Studio Theater, Free
Writers Rachel Beanland and Brian Castleberry and literary agent Chad Luibl will discuss how a novel goes from a writer's initial idea through subsequent revisions and on to the publication stage. This workshop will help beginning writers understand the process of finishing a book, finding representation, getting a book deal, and maintaining a career as a published novelist.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS:
Brian Castleberry's first novel, Nine Shiny Objects, was a New York Times Editor's Choice, long-listed for the PEN/Faulkner award, and awarded the Library of Virginia Book Award. His stories and essays have been published in Narrative, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Southern Review, LitHub, and elsewhere. His second novel, The Californians, is out in paperback now from Mariner Books.
Rachel Beanland is the author of The House Is on Fire and Florence Adler Swims Forever, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction. She is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and earned her MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives with her family in Richmond, VA.
Chad Luibl is a literary agent at Janklow & Nesbit Associates, where he specializes in literary and book club fiction, memoir and untold histories, and graphic novels. Born and raised in Virginia, Chad received a BA in English at Lynchburg University before moving to Eastern Europe to teach English for several years. While in Krakow, Poland, he got his MA in European Studies at Jagiellonian University, with a focus in Comparative Literature. He went on to get his MFA in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he was also the coordinator of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, an intern in the Literature Department at the National Endowment for the Arts, and an editor at Blackbird and Broad Street literary journals.
ALYSIA ABBOTT
Saturday, March 21, 7:00 PM, PBK Hall Studio Theater, Free
Alysia Abbott is the author of the bestselling memoir Fairyland, now a feature-length film, produced by Sofia Coppola, streaming on Amazon and Apple TV. The memoir was a New York Times editors' choice, a LAMBDA literary award finalist, and a winner of the ALA Stonewall Book Award and Madame Figaro "Prix Heroine." Abbott's commentary, essays and criticism have been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, NPR's Cognoscenti and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from The Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Ragdale. Formerly the head of GrubStreet's Memoir Incubator program, she now teaches writing and literature at Emerson College and Mass Art.
Alysia will be present for a Q&A discussion following a screening of Fairyland.