Rebecca Mead, staff writer for The New Yorker, to speak at Sweet Briar

Rebecca Mead


Sweet Briar’s 2018-2019 Writers Series continues with Rebecca Mead on Oct. 9, 2018, at 7:30 p.m. in the Reahard Learning Gallery of Mary Helen Cochran Library at the College.

Born in London and educated at Oxford University and New York University, Mead has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1997. She has profiled many subjects, among them Lena Dunham, Christine Quinn, Santiago Calatrava, Nico Muhly, Slavoj Zizek and Shaquille O’Neal. She has also written more than 200 Talk of the Town stories, a collection of articles that includes news, in-depth reporting, commentary and analysis. She is the author of the books “One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding” and “My Life in Middlemarch.”

Mead is a particularly welcome speaker at Sweet Briar this year. “Given that The Mindful Writer course is based on The New Yorker magazine as our text, Rebecca Mead’s visit will be a wonderful opportunity for students to meet a staff writer, to learn about the culture of the magazine and about the trajectory of her own career,” said Carrie Brown, director of the Center for Creativity, Design and the Arts. “She’s done some fascinating pieces for the magazine, and it will be really interesting to learn how those stories came together. I’m thrilled we were able to make her visit possible.”

Mead’s talk is the third event in the 2018-2019 Writers Series. New York Times best-selling author Beth Macy kicked off the series on Sept. 20. Tessa Fontaine followed on Oct. 2 and Chimamanda Adichie will speak on Oct. 25. Susannah Nevison and Meg Day will close out the 2018-2019 Writers Series on Thursday, March 14, 2019.

For more information about these authors and the Sweet Briar College Writers Series, contact John Gregory Brown, director of the English and creative writing program, at brown@sbc.edu or 434-381-6434.