Acclaimed novelist and short story writer Mary Gaitskill will kick off Manhattan College’s Major Authors Reading Series (M.A.R.S.) on Monday, Sept. 23.
Gaitskill is the author of Veronica, a novel nominated for the 2005 National Book Award, National Critic’s Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. She also wrote Two Girls and Fat and Thin, along with story collections entitled Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To and Don’t Cry.
According to the Village Voice, “There may be no better writer than Gaitskill at reaching deep into what she calls ... ‘the trapdoors in personality and obsession’ … Past, present, future; heartbreak, desire and loss — none of it is quite beyond her.”
Following Gaitskill, memoirist, novelist, poet and editor Jill Bialosky, who is best known for her memoir History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life, which became a New York Times bestseller, will visit campus on Oct. 8 at 4:30 p.m. The series closes with readings from distinguished poet and critic, Alicia Ostriker on Nov. 14 at 5 p.m.
Now in its eighth consecutive semester, the M.A.R.S. series is designed to engage and expose students to contemporary literature. Since the series launched in 2010, it has brought several notable writers to campus for readings and book signings. They include The New York Times Sunday Book Review Editors’ Choice winners Josh Weil and Honor Moore; Pulitzer Prize winners Junot Diaz, Jennifer Egan and Claudia Emerson; National Book Award finalist Joshua Ferris; essayist Phillip Lopate; Marie Howe, the current Poet Laureate of New York state; and poet Iain Haley Pollock, winner of the 2010 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.
The series is co-sponsored by the College’s English department and the School of Arts, in cooperation this semester with the Women and Gender Studies program. All of the M.A.R.S. events are open to the public and will be held in Hayden Hall, room 100.