Sometimes there is a fine line between fact and fiction. Yet where exactly that line lays is subjective — And what is objectivity anyway? Literary conventions — narrative form, character development, rich descriptions— are assumed methods that writers have used to construct histories. But how do these methods actually shape the histories being told? How have historians used creative writing to augment a sense of history among readers? Lucy Sante, celebrated writer and thinker, knows something of these dynamics. Throughout her oeuvre, Sante has defied literary conventions by blending writing styles and offering creative approaches to historical writing that convey panoramic textures of lives past and present.
Join us for a reading of Sante’s most recent work, I heard Her Call My Name (Penguin-Random House, 2024). It is a personal history of gender transition and much more. Following the reading there will be a conversation about history and the writing life the author and Ryan Purcell, (SLC History).
Lucy Sante is the author of Low Life, Evidence, The Factory of Facts, Kill All Your Darlings, Folk Photography, The Other Paris, Maybe the People Would Be the Times, and Nineteen Reservoirs. Her awards include a Whiting Writers Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Grammy Award (for album notes), an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, and Guggenheim and Cullman Center fellowships. She recently retired after twenty-four years teaching at Bard College.