Barbara Gohn Day Memorial Lecture

Explorer of the profound connections of empathy and home, Anna Quindlen eschews the increasingly materialistic and hectic nature of American culture as she “captures both the beauty and the breathtaking fragility of family life” (People). She began her career as a journalist in 1974, and over the next two decades worked most notably at the New York Times, where her column “Public and Private” won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1992. Since 1995 Quindlen has devoted the majority of her time to writing novels, which include Object Lessons, Rise and Shine, and One True Thing, which was adapted into a popular film starring Meryl Streep. Still Life with Bread Crumbs follows the flight of a photographer from her shaky life in the city to the realizations of peace and personal growth in the country.