Poet and memoirist Mary Karr is the Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry in 2005 and has won Pushcart Prizes for both her poetry and essays. Her bestselling memoir, The Liars' Club, won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award and was named best book of the year by many publications. Her follow-up memoir, Cherry, was also a bestseller. Filled with the dark humor that suffuses much of her work, Karr's new memoir Lit chronicles her descent into alcoholism and her conversion to Catholicism with an unlikely tribe of gurus and saviors.

Meelya Gordon Memorial Lectures