TWIST: Building Empathy Through Literature with Colum McCann

Don’t miss this wide-ranging conversation with award-winning Irish novelist, Colum McCann, and Sarah Shotland, director of Carlow’s Madwomen in the Attic program. Together, they will discuss Colum’s work as co-founder of the empathy-building not-for-profit Narrative 4, which has built bridges between fractured communities in Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Kentucky, Ireland, Haiti, Israel, South Africa, Mexico, and Rwanda. They will also discuss his masterwork of empathy, Apeirogon, and his latest novel, Twist, of which Salman Rushdie remarked, “The spirit of Joseph Conrad hovers over the text, but here the heart of darkness lies at the bottom of the ocean.”

Note: This program will be hosted at the Foerster Student Service Center Auditorium at the Community College of Allegheny County (839 Ridge Ave SSC 360, Pittsburgh, PA 15212)

About the Author:

Colum McCann is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Apeirogon, TransAtlantic, Let the Great World Spin, Zoli, Dancer, This Side of Brightness, and Songdogs, as well as three critically acclaimed story collections and two nonfiction books, Letters to a Young Writer and American Mother. His fiction has been published in more than forty languages. He has received many honors, including the National Book Award, the International Dublin Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Oscar nomination for his short film Everything in This Country Must. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Irish association of artists Aosdána. He has received a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres Award from the French government, in addition to awards in Italy, Germany, and China. A contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review, he is the co-founder of the global nonprofit story exchange organization Narrative 4. He lives with his family in New York.

About the Moderator:

Sarah Shotland is the author of the novel Junkette (WG Press) and the participatory nonfiction project Abolition is Everything (Antenna Press). Her work has been published in journals including The Iowa Review, North American Review, Ploughshares, and Creative Nonfiction.  She is an Associate Professor of English at Carlow University, where she directs the Madwomen in the Attic program and serves as incoming Chair of the Art, Communications, and English department.