THE BROWN WRITERS' SYMPOSIUM
2008 Speakers Series

Mark Arsenault is a mystery author and a general assignment reporter for The Providence Journal in Rhode Island. He has drawn on 18 years in journalism for inspiration in each of his novels. His third book, the thriller Gravewriter, (St. Martin’s Press, 2006) is the first in a new series to be set in Providence, Rhode Island. His first book, Spiked, (Poisoned Pen Press, 2003) was a finalist for the Shamus Award for Best First Mystery. His follow-up novel, Speak Ill of the Living, (Poisoned Pen Press, 2005) was inspired by two years of jailhouse interviews inside “Supermax,” Rhode Island's most secure prison.

Catherine Watson is an award-winning writer, photographer and teacher. The former travel editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, she is the author of two collections of travel essays, the new Home on the Road—Further Dispatches from the Ends of the Earth (Syren, 2007), and Roads Less Traveled—Dispatches from the Ends of the Earth (Syren, 2005), which Booklist called “travel reading at its best.” Her new book has just been named a finalist in the memoir category of the Minnesota Book Awards.

Wayne Koestenbaum has published five books of non-fiction prose: Andy Warhol; Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars and Aesthetics; Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon; The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire; and Double Talk: The Erotics of Male Literary Collaboration. He has also published a novel, Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes, and five books of poetry. The Queen’s Throat was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award; Koestenbaum won a Whiting Writer’s Award in 1994. He is a Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Christine Montross, Brown MD ’06 “As a published poet, Christine Montross explored the emotions of the human heart. Then she became a medical student and held one in her hands for the first time. . . . Montross has written a memoir, Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab. By turns funny, disturbing, and reverent, it’s the story of her first semester of medical school and the lessons she learned about life from studying the dead.” (Brown Alumni Magazine, September/October 2007). As an accomplished poet and writing teacher, she brings a unique perspective to the field of medicine.