Author Event: Olivia Sears & Sylvia Brownrigg
Past Event

Join us for a reception of marvelous libations and nibbles before the readings begin.

Sylvia Brownrigg is the author of eight works of fiction, including The Delivery Room, Pages for You (winner of a Lambda Award), and Pages for Her. Her middle-grade book, written under the name Juliet Bell, Kepler’s Dream, was turned into an independent feature film. Sylvia’s reviews and interviews have been published widely, including in The New York Times, The Guardian, and the LA Review of Books. Sylvia will be reading from her 2024 memoir, The Whole Staggering Mystery: A Story of Fathers Lost and Found, described by The New York Times as “an exuberant yarn…an absolute banger.” It tells the story of her American father and her English grandfather. The story uncovers many hidden stories of forgotten family members split apart by divorce and geography, and restores a sense of connection, and a way of redrawing the lines of family.

Olivia E. Sears is a writer, editor, literary translator, and the founder of the Center for the Art of Translation. Olivia will be reading from her translation of Simultaneities and Lyric Chemisms by Italian painter and poet Ardengo Soffici. Fresh from his collaborations with Picasso and Apollinaire in Paris, Soffici composed colorful poems—full of experimental typography—declaring art’s essential role in life. Written in the years leading up to the First World War, this book offers a glimpse into the vibrant early avant-garde, when modernity held tremendous promise. “Every painting is a window onto the frenzy of life,” Soffici writes, and he is a master of painting with words.

More about the authors:

Sylvia Brownrigg:

Sylvia Brownrigg is the author of several acclaimed works of fiction: four novels, including Pages for You and The Delivery Room; a collection of short stories Ten Women Who Shook the World; and a book for middle-grade readers, Kepler’s Dream, which was turned into a feature film.

Sylvia’s works have been included in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times lists of notable fictions and have been translated into several languages, and she has won a Lambda award for fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, the art journal frieze, as well as several anthologies. “The Lady in the Desert” was read on BBC Radio 4 and “Amazon” was one of NPR’s Selected Shorts. In addition to writing fiction, Sylvia Brownrigg has also taught at the American University in Paris and been widely published as a reviewer and critic.

Sylvia went to school in Palo Alto, California, and Oxford, England. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Yale University and a Master’s in Writing from Johns Hopkins. She has a son and daughter, as well as a stepson, with her former husband Sedge Thomson. The family divides their time between Berkeley and London.

Olivia Sears:

Olivia E. Sears is the board president and founder of the Center for the Art of Translation. She co-founded the journal Two Lines in 1993 and was its editor for twelve years. Sears has a BA in Humanities from Yale University and a PhD in Italian literature from Stanford University. As a translator of Italian poetry, she focuses primarily on avant-garde poetry by women poets of the past hundred years, and the poetry of war. Recent translations include work by Patrizia Cavalli, Tiziano Rossi, Chandra Livia Candiani, Eva Taylor, Patrizia Vicinelli, Mara Cini, Maria d’Arezzo, and Ardengo Soffici, as well as Renaissance poets Veronica Gambara and Vittoria Colonna. In addition to serving as the president of the Center, she sits on the advisory board of the Center for Writers and Translators in Paris. (Photo credit: courtesy of the author)

When

Oct 1, 2025
4:30pm – 6:30pm

Where

Frank Buxton Auditorium

Tickets

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