Writer/alumna Andrea Barrett to speak

Andrea Barrett '74

One of the highlights of Homecoming & Family Weekend 2006 will be not one, but two opportunities to meet National Book Award-winning fiction writer Andrea Barrett '74, who will read from her work, answer questions, sign books and chat in the comfort of a Minerva.

Barrett inaugurates the English Department's exciting year-long program, "Writers Return: The Alumni Writers Series" on Friday, Oct. 13, at 8 p.m. in the Nott Memorial. Her Perspectives at the Nott talk, free and open to the public, is sponsored by the President's Office, Alumni Relations and Wold House. A book signing and reception will follow the reading. Then on Saturday, Oct. 14, Barrett visits Wold House from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. for an informal conversation with students and faculty.

Barrett graduated from Union with a degree in biology and pursued zoology and medieval history before writing fiction in earnest. Her work has been hailed as beautiful, exhilarating, evocative, devastating, dazzling and wonderfully original. In 1996, she received a National Book Award for "Ship Fever," a collection of short stories. Her other top writing prizes include a Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and two O. Henry awards. Another story collection, "Servants of the Map," was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. 

A Massachusetts native, Barrett is married to Dr. Barry Goldstein '73, a photographer, physician and biophysicist, who'll also speak at Homecoming. Barrett received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Union in 1996. Others in the Writers Return series include Nikki Beland '96 and Diane Mehta '88 during winter term and Kate White '72 and Kerrie Ticknor Droban '87, who'll visit in the spring. Stay tuned.