New York Times Best-Selling Novelist Lauren Groff to Speak at Holy Cross

Lauren Groff, New York Times best-selling novelist and award-winning fiction writer, will give a reading as part of the Working Writers Series on Thursday, Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The event, sponsored by the College’s Creative Writing Program, is free and open to the public.

Groff is the author of three books: “The Monsters of Templeton” (Hyperion Books, 2008), which was a New York Times’ Editors’ Choice selection, “Delicate Edible Birds” (Hyperion Books, 2009), a collection of short stories and “Arcadia” (Voice, 2012), which was released to much critical acclaim. 

“Arcadia,” which takes place in New York State in the 1970s, follows several characters who pursue their dream of founding a commune on the grounds of a dilapidated mansion called Arcadia House. As the romance of the utopian dream of Arcadia wanes and waxes, an only child named Bit must reckon with matters of identity, love and the world beyond. Hailed as “A moving look at the value of human connection in a scary, chaotic world” by Entertainment Weekly, “Arcadia” has also been celebrated as “timeless and vast” by the New York Times.

Groff, who earned her M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.A. from Amherst College, is the recipient of the Axton Fellowship in Fiction at the University of Louisville, has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers and has been awarded residencies and fellowships at Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center and Ragdale. Her short stories, which are widely admired, have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, One Story, Best American Short Stories 2010, and Best New American Voices 2008. 

Groff was born in Cooperstown, New York and now resides in Gainesville, Florida with her husband and two sons.