This program will be held in-person at the Newberry and livestreamed on Zoom. The online version of this event will be live captioned. Please register below.
Award-winning American playwright and author, Sarah Ruhl (The Clean House, How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, Smile) and Rebecca Makkai (I Have Some Questions for You, The Great Believers) will discuss Ruhl’s career as a playwright, author, and essayist, with a focus on the craft of writing.
Writers on Writing is presented in partnership with StoryStudio Chicago. Perfect for readers and writers alike, these talks celebrate one author's work—a glimpse behind the creative curtain, a chance to ask questions, and an opportunity to celebrate the art of the written word.
Recent books by both authors will be available to purchase at the Newberry bookshop, and the authors will sign copies after the talk.
Writers on Writing is generously supported by Shanti Nagarkatti and Sue and Melvin Gray.
Speaker
Sarah Ruhl is an award-winning American playwright, author, essayist, and professor. Her plays include The Oldest Boy, Dear Elizabeth, Stage Kiss, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2010); The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2005; Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004); Passion Play (Pen American Award, Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center); Dead Man’s Cell Phone (Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play); Melancholy Play; Demeter in the City (nine NAACP Image Award nominations); Scenes From Court Life; How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday; Eurydice; Orlando; and Late: a cowboy song. Her plays have been produced on Broadway and across the country as well as internationally and translated into fourteen languages. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her MFA from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. She is the recipient of a Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a PEN Center Award for mid-career playwrights, a Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, and a Lilly award. She is a member of 13P and New Dramatists and won the MacArthur Fellowship in 2006. She teaches at Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family.
Rebecca Makkai is the Chicago-based author of the novels The Great Believers, a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, The Hundred-Year House, and The Borrower. Her latest novel, I Have Some Questions for You, was released in February 2023 and was an instant New York Times
bestseller. She is on the MFA faculties of Sierra Nevada College and Northwestern University and is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.
Cost and Registration
This program is free and open to all. Advance registration required.
Registration opens September 1.
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