Joan Silber is an American treasure, a novelist and short story writer of great beauty and exquisite sensitivity. A recipient of many of the major American literary prizes, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the PEN/Malamud Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and others, her new novel, Mercy, is a profound meditation on guilt, redemption, and the unexpected ways in which our decisions ripple across the communities in which we live. She will be joined in conversation by Fairfield professor and National Book Award-winning author Phil Klay. This lecture is part of the MFA Inspired Writers Series. 

Silber is the author of ten books of fiction. Her last book, Secrets of Happiness, was a Washington Post and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year and an O Magazine Most Anticipated Book. Her novel, Improvement, was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. She also received the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Her book, Fools, was long-listed for the National Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Other works include The Size of the World, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, and Ideas of Heaven, finalist for the National Book Award and The Story Prize. She lives in New York and has taught at Sarah Lawrence College and in the Warren Wilson MFA program.