The Friends of the Columbia Libraries are pleased to sponsor an evening of conversation with acclaimed writers Mary Beth Keane, author of the new book The Walking People, and Mary Gordon, author of Circling My Mother and Pearl. The event will take place on Wednesday, September 23 at 6:00 p.m. in the Sulzberger Parlor on the 3rd Floor of Barnard Hall, 3009 Broadway and is free and open to the public.

Mary Beth Keane attended Barnard College and earned an MFA from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow. She was a winner of the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Prize in 2004 and was a 2005 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her short fiction has appeared in various newspapers and journals including The Chicago Tribune, The Antioch Review, The Baltimore Review, New York Stories, and The Recorder. Based in part on her mother’s stories of Ireland and her father’s stories about working as a “sandhog” in the water tunnels of New York City, The Walking People is Keane’s first novel.

Mary Catherine Gordon is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College. She is the author most recently of the novel Pearl and the memoir Circling My Mother, among many others. She is the recipient of a Lila Acheson Wallace Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award and a Guggenheim fellowship.

A reception and book signing will immediately follow the program. For more information regarding this event or to attend, please respond to cul-events@columbia.edu. To view a listing of events, visit www.alumni.libraries.columbia.edu.