“Still Alice” Author Lisa Genova in Conversation Re: Her New Book at Woodstock Town Hall
A beginning for the new Bookstock
If you are of a certain age, or know someone who is, it is common that conversation often turns to how to care for yourself as you grow older, when to worry if you can’t remember the name of the person you’ve just met or where you put your keys. And how to negotiate the unthinkable. Thus, many of us have been driven to see Still Alice, a 2014 film starring Julianne Moore that explores how oncoming dementia affects Alice’s day to day life as a professor and wife. No real spoilers here, but if you have seen the film, you will remember (because you gasped and clutched at your own heart) when—oh good lord—pills spill and scatter across the floor. Still Alice was based upon a book of the same name written by author Lisa Genova.
Genova is headed to Woodstock, Vermont’s Town Hall Theater on January 17, (6:45 pm) just days after the release of her new book, More or Less Maddy. Like Alice, it’s a novel about a character with a mental illness; Maddy is a young woman with bipolar disorder. You might wonder why Lisa seems to have staked out mental illness as a theme for her novels unless you know that she graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University. She has been “acclaimed as the Oliver Sacks of fiction and the Michael Crichton of brain science.” According to Booklist, “In More or Less Maddy, Genova uses her signature “deep empathy and insight” in crafting another profoundly moving novel that makes complicated mental health issues accessible and human.”
But a conversation takes two, and fortunately Genova will share the stage with Woodstock’s own resident physician-neuroscientist, Melodie Winawer. Melodie is an associate professor of neurology at Columbia University who has published more than seventy-five scientific articles. She’s also the author of two novels: Anticipation and The Scribe of Siena, and a contributor to We All Fall Down: Stories of Plague and Resilience, an anthology of short stories by nine historical fiction writers. She is currently working on her third novel, a dual-timeline story set in modern and ancient Minoan Crete. Melodie lives with her spouse and their three children in Woodstock, Vermont.
On the previous evening, Thursday, January 16, Pentangle Arts will screen Still Alice in Woodstock’s Town Hall Theatre, beginning at 7:30 pm. The film, starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, and Kristen Stewart, earned critical and popular acclaim, an Oscar for Julianne Moore, and two dozen other major awards, not to mention the aforementioned and unforgettable pill scattering scene. Tickets ($8, 10) are required for the film and can be purchased from the Bookstock website. The January 17 conversation at the Town Hall Theatre is free but still requires a ticket. Click here for more information.
The presentation—in partnership with the indie Yankee Bookshop and Pentangle Arts Council—is a first step for the newly constituted Bookstock, (click here for a previous post on Artful) which after the abrupt cancellation of Bookstock 2024, will bring Vermont’s Festival of Words back to the Woodstock Green and environs on May 16, 17, and 18, 2025. To learn more about the festival, head to Bookstock’s website.
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.