Q&A

December 20, 2010 An accomplished physician and teacher, Abraham Verghese put his life on hold to attend the celebrated Iowa Writers Workshop. Since graduating from the program in 1991, he’s balanced his day job with a writing career, publishing two nonfiction books and contributing to the likes of Esquire and The Atlantic Monthly. In his first novel, Cutting For Stone, Verghese tells the story of Marion Stone, an orphaned twin conceived of an illicit affair between an Indian nun and a dashing but volatile British surgeon. With wise and compelling prose, the epic tale weaves its themes of love, betrayal, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice together with the destinies of a country and a proud yet fractured family. Verghese appears February 26 at noon in 208 Light Hall on the Vanderbilt University campus, and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on February 27 at 2 p.m.

July 13, 2010 After more than sixty years of acclaim as both a novelist and short-story writer, Mississippi native Elizabeth Spencer is still pursuing her craft. In anticipation of her reading at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, she spoke with Chapter 16 about her remarkable body of work. Spencer will read at the Bairnwick Women’s Center on the Sewanee campus. The event is free and open to the public.