Writers Gail Mazur, Tom Perrotta, and Dennis Lehane read from their current projects and discuss the New England authors who have been important to their work. This lively, entertaining, and thoroughly Bostonian discussion connects the city's literary past to the thriving writing community of today.
Dennis Lehane has written seven novels, *A Drink Before the War*, *Darkness*, *Take My Hand*, *Sacred*, *Gone Baby Gone*, *Prayers for Rain*, *Mystic River* and *Shutter Island*. *Mystic River* was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel as well as the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction given by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.
Gail Mazur's book, *Zeppo's First Wife: New & Selected Poems*, is winner of the 2006 Massachusetts Book Award, a finalist for the 2005 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. She is author of four earlier books of poetry, *Nightfire*, *The Pose of Happiness*, *The Common*, and *They Can't Take That Away from Me*, which was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award. She is Writer in Residence at Emerson College and Founding Director of the Blacksmith House Poetry Series, which she ran for 29 years. She is working on a new poetry collection, *Figures in a Landscape*. Photo credit to Michelle DeBakey.
Tom Perrotta is the author of six works of fiction including *Bad Haircut*, *The Wishbones*, *Election*, and the New York Times bestsellers *Joe College*, *Little Children*, and most recently, *The Abstinence Teacher*. In 1999, *Election* was made into an acclaimed feature film directed by Alexander Payne and starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. In 2006, Perrotta was nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay for the movie version of *Little Children*, which was directed by Todd Field and starred Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly. He lives with his family outside Boston.