Have you ever wished to be a fly on the wall, listening to a conversation between two of your favorite writers? Well, here’s your chance. Join John Cotter and Elisa Gabbert, who’ve both recently released award-winning books of nonfiction (who just so happen to be married), for a short reading and wide-ranging conversation about the writing life, writing “real” life, and hopefully some hot literary gossip too.
Nonfiction Fest is a two-day celebration of nonfiction taking place on November 9 and 10, with the opportunity to engage in craft seminars, panels, and evening events. Learn more here. Participants can register for individual workshops and events like this one a la carte, or at a discount as part of a pass.
John Cotter is the author of a memoir, Losing Music, winner of the Colorado Book Award for creative nonfiction, and of Under the Small Lights, winner of the Miami University Press novella competition. His essays and stories have appeared in Prairie Schooner, New England Review, Raritan, Epoch, Guernica, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, LitHub, and Commonweal. He's been an Artist in Residence at SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine, and the James Merrill House in Stonighton, Connecticut. He was presented with the Lighthouse Writers' Beacon Award for Teaching Excellence in 2018.
Elisa Gabbert is the author of seven collections of poetry, essays, and criticism, including Any Person Is the Only Self, Normal Distance, The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays, The Word Pretty, and The Self Unstable. She writes the On Poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, The Believer, the New York Review of Books, A Public Space, The Yale Review, and many other venues. She lives in Providence.