Writing About Writers - Mary V. Dearborn, George Getschow, Harold Holzer & Monika Zgustova

In this panel discussion, biographers and novelists discuss what its like to write about the lives and legacies of renowned writers. Featured writers include Mary V. Dearborn on Carson McCullers, George Getschow on Larry McMurtry, Harold Holzer on Abraham Lincoln, and Monika Zgustova on Véra Nabokov. Moderated by Peter Coviello.
This conversation took place during the American Writers Festival on May 19, 2024 and was recorded live. To learn more about the American Writers Festival, click here: americanwriter...
The books:
"Carson McCullers: A Life" by Mary V. Dearborn - The first major biography in more than twenty years of one of America’s greatest writers, based on newly available letters and journals.
"Pastures of the Empty Page: Fellow Writers on the Life and Legacy of Larry McMurtry" edited by George Getschow - A collection of essays that offers an intimate view of Larry McMurtry, America’s preeminent western novelist, through the eyes of a pantheon of writers he helped shape through his work over the course of his unparalleled literary life.
"Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration" by Harold Holzer - From acclaimed Abraham Lincoln historian Harold Holzer, a groundbreaking account of Lincoln’s grappling with the politics of immigration against the backdrop of the Civil War.
"A Revolver to Carry at Night" by Monika Zgustova - A captivating, nuanced portrait of the life of Véra Nabokov, who dedicated herself to advancing her husband’s writing career, playing a vital role in the creation of his greatest works.
"Is There God After Prince?: Dispatches from an Age of Last Things" by Peter Coviello - Essays considering what it means to love art, culture, and people in an age of accelerating disaster.
The writers:
MARY V. DEARBORN holds a doctorate in English and comparative literature from Columbia University, where she was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities. She is the author of seven books-among them, "Mistress of Modernism: The Life of Peggy Guggenheim" and "Ernest Hemingway." Dearborn has been a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She lives in Buckland, Massachusetts.
GEORGE GETSCHOW is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for National Reporting and winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Award for distinguished writing about the underprivileged. He has earned numerous other awards for his writing and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2012 for "distinctive literary achievement." Today, as director of the Archer City Writers Workshop, he helps organize and conduct annual writing workshops in Archer City for professional writers and college and high school students from across the country.
HAROLD HOLZER is the recipient of the 2015 Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize. One of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era, Holzer was appointed chairman of the US Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission by President Bill Clinton and awarded the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush. He currently serves as the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, City University of New York.
MONIKA ZGUSTOVA is an award-winning author whose works have been published in ten languages. She was born in Prague and studied comparative literature in the United States. She then moved to Barcelona, where she writes for El País, The Nation, and CounterPunch, among others. As a translator of Czech and Russian literature into Spanish and Catalan-including the writing of Havel, Kundera, Hrabal, Hašek, Dostoyevsky, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, and Babel-Zgustova is credited with bringing major twentieth-century writers to Spain. Her most recent book, "A Revolver to Carry at Night" is published by Other Press.
PETER COVIELLO is the author of six books, including "Make Yourselves Gods, "a finalist for the 2020 John Whitmer Historical Association Best Book Prize, and "Long Players," a memoir selected as one of ARTFORUM’s Best Books of 2018. His newest book, "Is There God After Prince?: Dispatches from an Age of Last Things," was selected for The Millions' "Most Anticipated" list for 2023. He is Professor and Head of English at the University of Illinois-Chicago.