Significant events

In the 1997-1998 academic year, the Center for Women initiated a reading series featuring women writers of genre fiction. Well-known creators of science fiction, fantasy and mystery were invited to Emory each fall to share some of their work and insights. The last program in this series was held during the 2001-2002 year. The series is now on indefinite hiatus.

Nicola Griffith was the featured author for our fifth annual event in the series on Women Writers in Genre Fiction. English by birth, she earned her beer money in a variety of ways: arm wrestling in bars, teaching women's self defense, fronting a band, and planting trees. Then she discovered writing and relocated to the U.S. in 1994. Her immigration case made new law: the State Department declared it to be in the "national interest" for her to live and work in the United States, despite the fact that she is openly lesbian. That controversial decision put Griffith on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. With the debate over her citizenship diminished, Griffith began to focus on her writing. She is co-author of the Bending the Landscape sci-fi series and a five time Lambda Literary Award winner.

Nicola Griffith gave a reading on Monday, November 12, 2001 at 7:30 p.m. in the Joseph W. Jones Room of the Woodruff library. She also delivered a colloquium the following day at 2:30 p.m., also in the Jones Room.

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Connie Willis was the featured author for our fourth annual event in the series on Women Writers in Genre Fiction. She is the winner of seven Hugo and six Nebula Awards, more than any other science fiction author, and she won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for her first novel, Lincoln's Dreams. Doomsday Book won both the Nebula and the Hugo Awards, and her first short story collection, Fire Watch, was a New York Times Notable Book. She received her most recent Hugo in September, 2000 for her novella, The Winds of Marble Arch. In 1999 she was named science fiction author of the decade by Locus magazine. Willis is currently co-writing with Sheila Williams A Woman's Liberation, an anthology of science fiction by and about women and women's issues.

Connie Willis read from her book, Passage,on Monday, November 6th, 2000 in the Joseph W. Jones Room of the Woodruff library. She delivered a colloquium the following day.

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Distinguished author and critic Carolyn Heilbrun was the featured speaker and reader for our third-annual event in the series Women Writers of Genre Fiction. Heilbrun became Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities Emerita at Columbia University in 1993, after thirty-three years of teaching there. Renowned as a pioneer in women's biography and autobiography, her most recent books include The Last Gift of Time (1997) and The Education of a Woman: A Life of Gloria Steinem (1995). She has served as the president of the Modern Language Association and as vice president of the Authors Guild. In addition to many works of criticism, Heilbrun has published twelve detective novels under the name Amanda Cross. Her latest in The Puzzled Heart (1998). She is currently working on a book about women detective writers.

Co-sponsored by Emory College, Emory Arts and Sciences Women's Council, Institute for Women's Studies and Creative Writing Program. Book signing was by CHARIS: Books & More.

Known for her eccentrically charming characters and witty dialogue, Trocheck was a journalist for fourteen years before launching a career in fiction. Protagonist Callahan Garrity-- who is the subject of seven books-- is a former Atlanta cop, a part-time sleuth, and full-time owner of House Mouse, a cleaning service that tidies up after the city's elite. the most recent title in the Callahan group is Midnight Clear. The series has been optioned by CBS for a possible miniseries.

Truman Kicklighter is the protagonist of two mysteries based in St. Petersburg, Florida: Crash Course and Lickety Split, Trocheck, a native of St. Petersburg, lives with her husband and two demanding children in a crumbling 1926 bungalow in an Atlanta suburb. she writes her mysteries from a cottage office her husband created from a hut salvaged from the 1996 Olympics.

Cosponsored by Institute for Women's Studies and Creative Writing Program. Booksigning by Final Touch.

Fantasy writer Emma Bull was the first author in the Women Writers of Genre Fiction series. Emma burst onto the fantasy scene in 1987 with War for the Oaks, one of the most critically acclaimed fantasy debuts of the decade. Her novel Bone Dance was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. Her latest book, Freedom and Necessity, is an epistolary novel set in England in 1849, cowritten with Steve Brust.