You are joyfully invited to celebrate the final stretch of our 2022 Back-to-School Fundraiser for Writers in the Schools! All month long, we’re raising $160,000 to support WITS Writers-in-Residence as they creatively engage thousands of public school students this year. On Friday, September 30, get a glimpse into the WITS experience and toast to all we’ll make possible as a community! Can’t attend? Make a gift to WITS!

Maggie O’Farrell, the Northern Irish author of the “magnificent and searing” novel Hamnet, returns with The Marriage Portrait, an electrifying new tale. Full of the drama and verve with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life and offers an unforgettable portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.

Celeste Ng is the bestselling author of three novels: Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and her latest work, Our Missing Hearts. In 2020, Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere was adapted into a popular limited series on Hulu, starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. Following its nationwide success, Ng’s latest work, Our Missing Hearts, explores the ways that supposedly civilized communities can pretend to ignore the most searing injustice. Q&A with Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution and Girl in Snow. Most tickets, with the exception of a limited number of Pay What You Can and complimentary tickets, include a copy of Our Missing Hearts, mailed to the ticket holder’s door.

An Indigenous human rights lawyer and writer from Guam, Julian Aguon is the founder of Blue Ocean Law, a progressive firm that works at the intersection of Indigenous rights and environmental justice. Part memoir, part manifesto, his forthcoming book, No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies is a coming-of-age story and a call for justice—for everyone, but in particular, for Indigenous peoples.

John Irving has written some of the most acclaimed books of our time, from The World According to Garp to The Cider House Rules. Irving returns with The Last Chairlift, his first novel in seven years—a ghost story, a love story, and a lifetime of sexual politics, set between Colorado and New England. Q&A with author and playwright Jeff Schwager. This event has moved to an online-only format. Most tickets, with the exception of a limited number of Pay What You Can and complimentary tickets, include a copy of The Last Chairlift, mailed to the ticket holder’s door.  

Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln in And There Was Light, charting how—and why—he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America. “Written with wisdom and grace, his story of Lincoln’s complex moral journey to Emancipation mirrors America’s long and troubled quest to live up to its founding ideals,” writes Doris Kearns Goodwin. Q&A with Margaret O’Mara, Professor of History at the University of Washington. Literary Arts Series subscriptions include a copy of And There Was Light, mailed to the subscriber’s door. Please note: complimentary subscriptions and single tickets do not include the book.