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INTERVIEWS

On the Life and Teachings of Kurt Vonnegut,” interview by Brilliant Miller, founder of The School for Good Living, January, 2022
Suzanne McConnell on How to Become a Writer,” podcast “Querty,” interview by memoirist Marion Roach Smith, January 2021
Reading Hope in Trying Times,” interview with Brian Allain for Writing For Your Life, 2020
Interview with Chuck Augello on Pity the Reader for The Daily Vonnegut, 2020
On Creativity with Suzanne McConnell” by Karen White, 2019
Necessary Stories: Interview about the Bellevue Literary Review,” The Review Review
Suzanne McConnell describes the Bellevue Literary Review and reads from “This, Of Course, Is Spiritual,” a story by Matthew Lombardi published in Fall 2009 (74:55 on the podcast)
Radio interview for “Bookshelf” on Kurt Vonnegut as a teacher, spring 2008
Magazine interview, “Novel Bound,” by Tracy Bledsoe, Cape Women, 2002

EVENTS


 August 8-12, 2022 “The Big Click: How to Shape a Story,” a one-week class on plot, using the practices in Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell. Castle Hill, Truro Center for the Arts, Truro, MA

See: Tips for students and teachers about reading Pity the Reader
Reading at Hunter College’s Junior Year in New York Program, New York, NY 1988


“Our ability to read…makes us the freest of women and men–and children…” – Kurt Vonnegut

 

READINGS

Wellfleet Library, Wellfleet, MA, 2020
Politics & Prose, Connecticut Ave., Washington D.C., 2020
Dixon Place, New York, NY, “Something’s Happening Here: Kurt Vonnegut and the 60s Zeitgeist,” with Mark Berger and songs performed by Christopher Sears, 2019
Oblong Books, Rhinebeck, NY, Conversation with owner, Dick Herman, 2019
Canio’s Books, Sag Harbor, NY, 2019
Oddysey Books, South Hadley, MA, 2019
Brookline Booksmith, MA, 2019
Strand Bookstore, New York, NY Pity The Reader book launch and conversation with Ginger Strand moderated by Dan Simon
AWP Off-site, “Two Hats: A Reading by Writers Who Are Editors,” Los Angeles, CA 2016
Writer’s Read, The Cell Theatre, “Heaven on Earth,” New York, NY, 2015
Writer’s Read, The Cell Theatre, NYC, “Papa,” Father’s Day, New York, NY, 2014
Editors of Bellevue Literary Review reading, KGB Bar, New York, NY, 2014
New York Public Library, “Periodically Speaking: The Magathon” (74:55 on video), New York, NY, 2010


 

SPEAKING

BBC Radio 4, participant, “Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut,” The Exploding Library, Dec. 9 & 13, 2021 American Academy, Berlin, DE, Distinguished Visitor Lecture, “Kurt Vonnegut: How Being in the Firebombing of Dresden as a Prisoner of War Changed his life and work”, 2021
Bard College, Berlin, DE, “Pity the Reader: Kurt Vonnegut as Teacher,” 2021
Vonnegut Museum and Library, 10th Anniversary Celebration, Indianapolis, IN, virtual panel discussion, “Vonnegut and the Environment,” 2021
Iowa Public Radio, “Talk of Iowa Book Club,” discussion about Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Mother Night, 2021Reading Hope in Trying Times – A series of writers speaking about hope and endurance during the pandemic of Covid-19, sponsored by Brian Allain, founder of Writing for Your Life, resources for spiritual writers, 2020
Moderator, symposium on emerging play at New Jersey Performing Arts Center, sponsored by New Jersey Theatre Alliance, April 29, 2016
Speech on Kurt Vonnegut as a teacher and writer for “Night of Vonnegut” at the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, April 19, 2014
Moderator and panelist, “Vonnegut’s Legacy: Writing about War and Other Debacles of the Human Condition,” presented at Associated Writing Programs Conference, 2014
Speech honoring William Harrison, my first writing teacher, at the Arkansas Festival of Writers (commemorating the 40th anniversary of the University of Arkansas’ MFA program, which he went on to establish), 2008

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