October 27, 2008
Bowling
Green, Ky. - Ann Fessler, visual artist and author of “The Girls Who Went Away,” will present a lecture on Nov. 13 at Western Kentucky University.
Fessler’s lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Mass Media and Technology Hall Auditorium. A book signing will follow.
Her visit is sponsored by the College of Health and Human Services, Potter College of Arts & Letters, School of Journalism & Broadcasting and Department of Social Work.
Fessler’s book “The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v Wade” combines passages from more than 100 oral history interviews she conducted with women who surrendered children for adoption in the United States between 1945 and1975.
The book, which places these stories within the history of the time period and her own story as an adoptee, was chosen by the National Book Critics Circle as one of the top five non-fiction books of 2006.
Fessler is a professor at Rhode Island School of Design. Her audio and video installations and award-winning short films on adoption have been shown in galleries, museums and film festivals around the country. In 2003–2004 she was awarded a prestigious Radcliffe Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, where she conducted interviews and research for the book. She is the recipient of visual art and film grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; the LEF Foundation; the Rhode Island Foundation; the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities; Art Matters, NY; and the Maryland and Rhode Island State Arts Councils.
In 2008, Fessler was the recipient of the Ernesta Ballard Book Prize, an annual award honoring a female author who advances the dialogue about women’s rights.
More information about Fessler and the book is available online at http://www.thegirlswhowentaway.com/.
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For information, contact Jeanie Adams-Smith at (270) 745-6301.
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