campus news & events

Word By Word Series at Colby-Sawyer College Hosts Reading by Author Michael Lowenthal

NEW LONDON, N.H. - The Humanities Department at Colby-Sawyer College will host a reading by author Michael Lowenthal as part of its Word by Word Series. Lowenthal is the author of three novels and his non-fiction work has appeared in major publications.

The event will take place on Thursday, Jan. 31, at 4 p.m. in the Cleveland, Colby, Colgate Archives at the Susan Colgate Cleveland Library. Admission is free and open to the public.

Lowenthal's most recent novel Charity Girl (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) is set in 1918 and based on a disturbing but little remembered episode in American history when the federal government, claiming special war-time powers to protect the military, arrested and incarcerated 15,000 women who had venereal disease. The women, all American citizens, were held indefinitely, without formal charges, in federally funded detention centers.

Lowenthal is also the author of two previous novels, Avoidance (Graywolf Press, 2002) and The Same Embrace (Dutton, 1998). His short stories have been widely anthologized, most recently in Best New American Voices 2005, Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from the Edge, and "best of" collections from Tin House and Nerve.com. He has also published non-fiction in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and other leading publications.

The recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Wesleyan writers' conferences, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers, Lowenthal teaches creative writing in the low-residency MFA program at Lesley University. He also serves on the executive board of the literary human rights organization PEN New England. For more information, please visit lowenthal.etherweave.com.


Colby-Sawyer, founded in 1837, is a comprehensive liberal arts college located in the scenic Lake Sunapee Region of central New Hampshire. Students learn in small classes through a select array of programs that integrate the liberal arts and sciences with pre-professional experience.

Colby-Sawyer College, 541 Main Street, New London, N.H. 03257 (603) 526-3000