Book Club for Writers: Barrett and Shepard

The library will hold its next Book Club for Writers short story discussion on Thursday, July 31 at 7:00 PM. Copies of “Servants of the Map” by Andrea Barrett and “Ancestral Legacies” by Jim Shepard will be available to pick up at the library in advance, and the discussion is free and open to the public.

Winner of the National Book Award and the Story Prize, Andrea Barrett is also the recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant.” She is especially well known as a writer of historical fiction and her subjects frequently include science and scientists. Her collection Servants of the Map was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and was hailed by the New York Times for “a wonderful clarity and ease, the serene authority of a writer working at the very height of her powers.” She teaches at Williams College and published her most recent novel, Archangel, last year.

Jim Shepard is the author of six novels and four collections of short stories, including the Story Award-winning Like You’d Understand, Anyway, in which “Ancestral Legacies” appears. His stories range widely in subject matter and are frequently grounded in substantial historical research; his last two collections included lengthy lists of sources. He is known for vigorously plotted stories that frequently end in the middle of the plot’s events, and for his resistance to what he terms “the tyranny of the epiphany.” Time permitting, the discussion will also take up Shepard’s story “Love and Hydrogen.” Like Barrett, Shepard teaches at Williams College. His most recent collection, You Think That’s Bad, was published in 2011.

The next Book Club for Writers discussion will be held on Thursday, October 23 and will feature two stories by James Thurber, “The Catbird Seat” and “You Could Look It Up.”