Back in 2022, the Ivy hosted Susan Coll for her much-beloved novel BOOKISH PEOPLE... and now we welcome her back, to celebrate REAL LIFE AND OTHER FICTIONS-- another novel about the ways that writing guides us through life. In this novel, an aspiring novelist sets out to find the truth about her parents' long-ago disappearance, and finds herself grappling with the nature of stories, myths, and who gets to write the endings.
We hope you'll join us for what's sure to be a thoughtful conversation with levity and comedy, featuring Marion Winik alongside Susan Coll. See you soon!
Click here to order REAL LIFE AND OTHER FICTIONS!
Real Life and Other Fictions is Susan Coll’s seventh novel. Her previous books include Bookish People; The Stager, a New York Times and Chicago Tribune Editor’s Choice; and Acceptance, which was made into a television movie starring Joan Cusack. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, Moment Magazine, NPR.org, and Atlantic.com. She is the events advisor at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC, and was the president of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation for five years.
Marion Winik is the author of nine books, including The Big Book of the Dead (Counterpoint, 2019) and First Comes Love (Pantheon, 1996). Her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere; her column at BaltimoreFishbowl.com has been running since 2011. A professor at the University of Baltimore, she reviews books for The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and People, among others, and hosts the NPR podcast The Weekly Reader. She was a commentator on All Things Considered for fifteen years. She is the recipient of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Service Award.
