Meredith Sue Willis: Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna" as a Political Novel

Award winning novelist Meredith Sue Willis will speak at the 11 AM Sunday Platorm of the Ethical Culture Society of Essex County on January 8th about how novels can be political. Willis will use as her primary example Barbara Kingsolver's recent book, The Lacuna. Kingsolver's book examines the relationships of people in society through events like the assassination of Leon Trotsky as well as through fictional situations and conflicts. This talk is based on a paper Sue presented at the Emory & Henry College Barbara Kingsolver Literary Festival.

Willis, fiction writer and native of West Virginia, teaches novel writing at NYU. She is a past president of the Essex Ethical Culture Society and past chair of the South Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race. Her most recent book is a short story collection called Re-Visions: Stories from Stories. Her newsletter for readers and writers is online at http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/booksforreaders.html, a website where you can also find her many awards including an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from West Virginia University. She lives in South Orange with her husband Andy Weinberger, a rheumatologist in private practice. Their son Joel and his wife Sarah are graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley.

Sunday Platforms are at 11:00 AM at the Ethical Culture Society of Essex County. The Society is located at 516 Prospect St., Maplewood (at Parker Ave.). Attendance is free. The public is welcome and cordially invited. Call 973-763-1905, or visit www.essexethical.org for further information.

"Building community through shared ethical values"

Ethical Culture Society of Essex County

www.essexethical.org