Fauci to speak at Amherst College as part of 10th annual LitFest

Staff Report

Published: 10-31-2024 3:12 PM

AMHERST — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who rose to prominence during the COVID pandemic, and actor and alumnus Jeffrey Wright, nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award earlier this year, will be among those visiting the Amherst College campus in late winter as guests for the 10th annual LitFest.

Between Feb. 27 and March 2, the college is hosting the festival celebrating fiction, nonfiction, poetry and spoken-word performance, as well as the college’s literary life and its literary magazine, The Common. Others scheduled to participate are novelist, essayist and photographer Teju Cole, and prominent poets Paisley Rekdal and Brandon Som.

“The 10th anniversary of LitFest is the perfect time to bring this extraordinary cohort of authors to the Writing College, highlighting all that Amherst does to support readers and writers on campus and beyond,” Jennifer Acker, editor-in-chief of The Common, said in a statement.

College President Michael A. Elliott said Amherst is proud to be known as a writer’s college. “I hope the members of the college community and beyond take advantage of this exceptional opportunity to attend readings, conversations and workshops with some of the most remarkable writers working today,” Elliott said.

LitFest’s events, with information about tickets and access to be announced at a later date, start on Feb. 28 at 3 p.m. at Keefe Campus Center, with a screening of the 2023 film and Best Picture Oscar nominee “American Fiction.”

Then, Elliott will have a conversation about the making of the film with Wright, who graduated from the college in 1987. Joining them will be Percival Everett, the author of the novel “Erasure” on which the film’s screenplay is based, and Cord Jefferson, the film’s writer and director who earned an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. That event is set for 5 p.m. at Johnson Chapel.

The following day at 5 p.m., also at Johnson Chapel, Cole, the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Harvard,will be in conversation with Acker.

That will be preceded March 1 at 3 p.m. with “Debut Stories: Readings and Mingling with Amherst Alumni Authors and The Common Student Interns.” The program will include introductions and remarks by Sam Spratford, literary editorial fellow of The Common, along with Amherst alumni authors including Diane Exavier, Lola Milholland, Sarah Sawyer and JinJin Xu, and The Common interns and current Amherst College students Alma Clark, Aidan Cooper, Sophie Durbin, Kei Lim and Sarah Wu. That is at being held at the Friendly Reading Room in Frost Library.

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The culminating events are March 2. Beginning at noon at Johnson Chapel, Fauci, who served as President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser from 2021 to 2022, will be in conversation with The Atlantic Editor-at-Large Cullen Murphy, who is also a college alumnus. Fauci has also written a memoir, “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service,” chronicling his life story from a childhood in Brooklyn to 50 years of public service.

Then, at 2 p.m. at Frost Library’s’ Friendly Reading Room will be “Phosphorescence Special Edition,” a poetry event with Rekdal and Som. This is being done in partnership with the National Book Foundation and the Emily Dickinson Museum, and will be moderated by Ruth Dickey, the foundation’s executive director.

The 2025 LitFest is sponsored by the Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Amherst College, The Common and the Emily Dickinson Museum, with other financial support from Croxton Lecture Fund, established in 1988 by 1936 graduate William M. Croxton.

Since its inception in 2016, LitFest has brought to campus nearly 40 renowned writers. The author events in the 2025 LitFest will incorporate book signings by the speakers following their talks. with people encouraged to buy books in advance from independent retailers including Amherst Books or Bookshop.org

For more information, visit amherst.edu/go/litfest.