BLUE HILL — Two award-winning novelists — one who had an asteroid named after him, another whose last novel shut down technology — will chat onstage in Blue Hill at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 18.
Visiting the area with the Authors Guild, celebrated science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will appear at the Bay School’s Emlen Hall, 17 Bay School Drive, under the auspices of Word, the Blue Hill literary arts festival, and Blue Hill Books. He will be in conversation with bestselling novelist and Blue Hill summer resident Jonathan Lethem.
The event is free and open to the public.
Robinson is the author of 22 novels, including the internationally bestselling Mars trilogy and more recently “Red Moon,” “New York 2140,” and “The Ministry for the Future.” He was part of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program in 1995 and 2016, and a featured speaker at COP-26 in Glasgow as a guest of the United Kingdom and the United Nations. His work has been translated into 28 languages, and has won awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016, asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.”
Lethem, an essayist and short story writer as well as a novelist, is best known for his 1999 novel “Motherless Brooklyn,” which was made into a film of the same title in 2019. In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. His most recent novel, The Arrest, set in rural Maine, is the story of what happens when much of what we take for granted — cars, guns, computers, and airplanes, for starters — quits working.
Word has funding from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation and other generous donors. Word’s media partner is WERU-FM. Its fiscal sponsor is Blue Hill Community Development.
Information: http://www.wordfestival.org or 207-374-5632.