In the Service of Story: Researching and Writing The International Sweethearts of Rhythm

Are you working on a long-term project? Or do you dream of taking on a subject that calls to you, but would require years of research and investigation?

During what’s sure to be a fascinating talk, author and journalist Megan Mayhew Bergman will get into the details of the decades of discovery, research, interviews, drafting, and editing that have gone into her new book about the groundbreaking, racially-integrated, all-female jazz ensemble, The International Sweethearts  of Rhythm.

This is an evening that writers—and people who want to know more about what it takes to dedicate yourself to the work and craft of writing—will enjoy.

Guest Speaker:
Megan Mayhew Bergman is the author of three other books: Birds of a Lesser Paradise, Almost Famous Women, and How Strange a Season. Megan is a journalist, essayist, and critic. She has written columns on climate change and the natural world for The Guardian and The Paris Review.  Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, and elsewhere. Her short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2011 and 2015, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts.

She was awarded the Garrett Award for Fiction and the Phil Reed Environmental Writing Award for Journalism, and fellowships at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the American Library in Paris. She serves on the Thoreau Prize Committee and on the board of Hildene, a Lincoln Family Home.

She currently teaches literature and environmental writing at Middlebury College, where she serves as Director of the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. She is also an instructor in the California Coast and Climate Semester and MPA in Sustainability Program and oversees an Environmental Storytelling Series.

This talk will take place on Thursday, April 3 from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm at The Manchester Community Library.