Beck Literary Festival event: Maggie Smith in Conversation with Emily St. John Mandel and Kevin Wilson

Name: 'Disruptive Technologies'
Start: 2026-09-21T16:30:00-04:00
End: 2026-09-21T18:00:00-04:00
Location: Denison University

November 6, 2026 7:00pm - 9:00pm

The Beck Series welcomes Maggie Smith, Emily St. John Mandel, and Kevin Wilson.

Location:	Swasey Chapel
Ticket Info:	This event is free and open to the public; however, tickets are required. Link below.
Questions:	Jean McCalmont Academic Administrative Assistant mccalmontj@denison.edu 740-587-6207

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Composite image showing three people: a woman with long dark hair on the left, a woman with short hair in the top right, and a man with short dark hair in the bottom right.

Join us for the inaugural Beck Literary Festival with celebrated authors Emily St. John Mandel and Kevin Wilson in conversation with acclaimed poet Maggie Smith.

The three bestselling writers continue Denison’s long tradition of hosting the most important voices in American literature as part of its Beck Series.

Held in the beautiful setting of Swasey Chapel, this engaging discussion offers readers and writers alike the opportunity to hear from three compelling literary voices.

Following the conversation, attendees are invited to meet the authors during a book signing on the Swasey Chapel stage. Books will be available for purchase in the lobby.

About the authors

Five book covers are shown side by side, including Exit West, Station Eleven, Nothing to See Here, and Run for the Hills..

Woman with long brown hair and bangs, wearing a dark top, smiling slightly, posed against a dark background.

Maggie Smith is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of nine books of poetry and prose, including A Suit or a Suitcase, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, Goldenrod, Keep Moving, and My Thoughts Have Wings. She has been widely published, appearing in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Best American Poetry, and more. She is the host of The Slowdown.

Photo credit: Chad Cochran

Person with short dark hair gazes to the left against a soft, blurred outdoor backdrop with pale sky.

Emily St. John Mandel is the bestselling author of numerous novels, including The Glass Hotel, Station Eleven, and Sea of Tranquility. Her novel Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Toronto Book Award, and The Morning News Tournament of Books, and was adapted into a limited series for HBO. A previous novel, The Singer’s Gun, was the 2014 winner of the Prix Mystere de la Critique in France. Her short fiction and essays have been anthologized in numerous collections, including Best American Mystery Stories 2013. She is a staff writer for The Millions.

Photo credit: JiaHao Peng

A man with short dark hair wearing a blue button-up shirt sits in front of a light gray wall, looking at the camera with a neutral expression.

Kevin Wilson is the author of seven books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Family Fang and Nothing to See Here, a Read with Jenna book club selection, and Run for the Hills. His fiction has appeared in multiple journals, as well as Best American Short Stories 2020 and 2021 and the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012. He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, with his family, where he is an associate professor in the English & Creative Writing Department at the University of the South.