SPEAKERS BUREAU
Speakers List:
Printer-friendly version
Sam Coale
American Storytellers of the 19th and 20th Centuries
In the past two centuries, American fiction writers have worked their way into the canon of English-language literature. Their novels and stories have contributed to the impact of American ideas and values throughout the world. Explore the works of an author in the company of others and enter into conversation about what makes a writer's creative voice unique and effective. Choose a single author or plan a special series focusing on multiple authors. Nineteenth-century authors include Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Stephen Crane. Twentieth-century authors include Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, John Cheever, John Updike, Thomas Pynchon, Joan Didion, Joyce Carol Oates, Don DeLillo, and Toni Morrison.
Groups scheduling author discussions should arrange to have participants read relevant works in advance.
American Wordsmiths of the 19th and 20th Centuries
During the last one hundred years, American poets took the English language in new directions, offering powerful insights into the social and emotional experiences of modern life. Join with others to study the poems of these linguistic innovators and discuss the themes and preoccupations that emerge in their work. Customize this presentation by selecting one or two poets or develop a poetry series featuring several poets. Choose among Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Hart Crane, Marianne Moore, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, and Wallace Stevens.
Groups scheduling author discussions should arrange to have participants read relevant works in advance.
Sam Coale is a Professor of American Literature at Wheaton College, where he teaches courses in fiction, poetry, and drama. The author of Mesmerism and Hawthorne: Mediums of American Romance, he is currently writing a book on American mystery writers. He has served as a humanities discussion moderator for Trinity Repertory Theater and has led more than 50 library book discussions. He is a former RICH board member.