Short story, book, play, film, and television discussion classes are scattered throughout the year to give you ample time for pleasure reading and viewing between each one. Pick a course or two to suit your literary tastes and register today!

Author Visit: Mary Beth Keane

The Half Moon (2023)

Monday, March 4 • 1:00pm-2:15pm • Scarsdale Public Library • Course 12427 • $30

Meet New York Times bestselling author Mary Beth Keane in conversation with Anna Katsavos as they discuss The Half Moon (2023). Keane's fourth novel concerns a faltering marriage but also the small details of ordinary daily life. The entire book takes place in the span of just one week in the life of Malcolm Gephardt, owner of the Half Moon bar, and his wife Jess, who has been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby and now seems poised to leave Malcolm for another man with three young children. As their town is engulfed in a massive blizzard, the inner lives of the two main characters remain front and center through Keane's absorbing prose. Time will be reserved for Q&A.

Pair this course with the book discussion led by Anna Katsavos (Course 12428), also in the winter schedule. Separate registration is required.

MARY BETH KEANE attended Barnard College and the University of Virginia, where she received an MFA. She was awarded a John S. Guggenheim fellowship for fiction writing, and has received citations from the National Book Foundation, PEN America, and the Hemingway Society. She is also the author of The Walking People, Fever, Ask Again, and Yes, a New York Times bestseller.

ANNA KATSAVOS, PhD, is an experienced book group facilitator. A SUNY Professor Emerita of English Literature and Women’s Studies, she has received numerous awards for teaching, and her scholarship has been published in a variety of literary journals. She has interviewed many best-selling authors and has presented interactive programs focusing on a wide range of women’s issues. Additionally, she conducts writing, editing and publishing workshops.

Walking Tour: Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature at the Morgan Library and Museum

Thursday, March 21 • 1:30pm-3:00pm • Morgan Library and Museum • Course 12423 • $80

Creator of unforgettable animal characters like Peter Rabbit, Mr. Jeremy Fisher, and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, the beloved children’s book author and illustrator Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) rooted her fiction in the natural world. Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature (February 23, 2024 through June 9, 2024) reunites her artwork, books, manuscripts, and artifacts from multiple institutions in the United Kingdom with the Morgan Library’s exceptional collection of her picture letters. Together, these objects trace how Potter’s innovative blend of scientific observation and imaginative storytelling shaped some of the world’s most popular children’s books.

HELEN LEE is an independent art educator, conducting research and crafting personal, customizable, in-person and virtual gallery experiences for adults and children at several museums. She studied art history as an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with areas of concentration in Asian Art and Modern Art.

Author Visit and Book Discussion:

Thrity Umrigar

The Museum of Failures (2023)

Monday, March 25 • 1:00pm-2:30pm • Online • Course 12441 • $30

Meet best-selling author Thrity Umrigar in a half-hour conversation with Anna Katsavos as they discuss Umrigar's latest critically-acclaimed novel, The Museum of Failures (2023). Immediately after, dive into a book discussion. A story of family, frailty, and forgiveness, this book's focus is on the relationship between Remy Wadia who returns to visit his family in India after a long absence and his ailing, hospitalized mother. Newly disclosed family secrets cause Remy to reevaluate his entire childhood and his relationship to his parents at the point that he is about to become a parent himself. Grief, bewilderment, nostalgia, displacement, and guilt yield to redemption and healing in this heartfelt tale.

THRITY UMRIGAR is a best-selling author of the novels Bombay Time, The Space Between Us, If Today Be Sweet, The Weight of Heaven, The World We Found, The Story Hour, Everybody’s Son, The Secrets Between Us, and Honor. She has also published a memoir and three children’s picture books along with many essays and articles. She is currently a Distinguished University Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. She was raised in Bombay, India, as a Parsi child attending a Catholic school in a predominantly Hindu country before coming to the United States at age 21. Her latest novel, The Museum of Failures, was named a best book of 2023 by NPR and others.

ANNA KATSAVOS, PhD, is an experienced book group facilitator. A SUNY Professor Emerita of English Literature and Women’s Studies, she has received numerous awards for teaching, and her scholarship has been published in a variety of literary journals. She has interviewed many best-selling authors and has presented interactive programs focusing on a wide range of women’s issues. Additionally, she conducts writing, editing and publishing workshops.

Registration is still open for next Monday's and Thursday's author visits

Author Visit: Kirstin Chen

Counterfeit (2022)

Monday, February 12 • 1:00pm-2:15pm • Online • Course 12379 • $30

Meet New York Times best selling author Kirstin Chen in conversation with Anna Katsavos as they discuss Counterfeit (2023), a Reese’s Book Club pick and the subject of a fierce eight-way bidding war for TV rights. Fast-paced thriller, feminist caper, and cautionary tale all rolled into one, this clever read is lots of fun. Thoroughly entertaining, Chen has set out to deconstruct the American dream as well as the myths of “the model minority,” exploding stereotype after stereotype about Asian and Asian Americans. Main characters Ava Wong and Winnie Fang, college roommates turned con-artists, find themselves involved with a designer handbag scam that is about to blow up. Ava, a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home has built the perfect life. Winnie, once timid and shy, is now a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods -- including a coveted Birkin in classic orange -- but she needs a favor. And so the adventure begins. Presented via alternating points of view and told in two very distinct voices, the protagonists' confessions aim to explain how Ava and Winnie's ordinary lives detoured toward a life of crime, but, in the end, we are left wondering whose version is authentic and whose is fake. Time will be reserved for Q&A.

Pair this course with the book discussion led by Anna Katsavos (Course 12425), also in the winter schedule. Separate registration is required.

KIRSTIN CHEN is the author of Soy Sauce for Beginners (2014) and Bury What We Cannot Take (2018). Born and raised in Singapore, she attended Stanford University and got her Master’s at Emerson College. She has received fellowships and awards from the Steinbeck Fellows Program, Sewanee, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the Toji Cultural Foundation, and the National Arts Council of Singapore. Her writing has appeared in The Cut, Real Simple, Literary Hub, Writer’s Digest, and Zyzzyva. She has taught at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the University of San Francisco, Ashland University, and elsewhere. She currently lives in New York City and San Francisco.

Author Visit: Jessica Saunders

Love, Me (2024)

in Conversation with Leigh Stein

Thursday, February 15 • 11:00am-12:30pm • Westchester Reform Temple • Course 12430 • $30



Meet debut novelist Jessica Saunders in conversation with experienced author Leigh Stein as they discuss Love, Me (2024). This contemporary romance incorporates celebrity gossip along with flashbacks to the 1990s for an entertaining and quick read about self-discovery and the enduring pull of old flames. Venture into the professional lawyer and soccer mom’s realm of “what ifs” and fantasies of second-chance love with the one that got away. Discussion will also cover the nitty gritty of book promotion, capitalizing on Stein’s expertise in helping fellow authors publicize their works on social media, primarily TikTok. Time will be reserved for Q&A. Class fee includes a copy of the book.

JESSICA SAUNDERS is a first-time novelist pursuing a new path after working as a product liability defense lawyer. She was inspired to write her first book after the death of a close friend in 2021. At that point, she turned her passion for fiction and love of writing into a new vocation.

LEIGH STEIN is an author, cultural critic, and was the cofounder and executive director of Out of the Binders/BinderCon, a feminist literary nonprofit dedicated to advancing the careers of women and gender variant writers. She also moderated a Facebook community of 40,000 writers before leaving that social media platform. She is the author of What to Miss When, Self Care, Land of Enchantment, Dispatch from the Future, and The Fallback Plan. as well as many articles published in literary magazines and news media.

Scarsdale Adult School | 914-723-2325 | P.O. Box 205, Scarsdale, NY 10583 | www.ScarsdaleAdultSchool.org

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