Author Ruth Setton Will Read from Latest Novel Today for Women’s History Month

Acclaimed author Ruth Setton, fiction editor of the literary journal Arts and Letters, will read from her latest novel noon-1 p.m. today at Interfaith Chapel, Hogg Hall.

Free and open to the public, the event is part of Lafayette’s Celebration of Women’s History Month. It is sponsored by the religion department’s Lyman Coleman Fund, the English department, the Jewish Studies program, and Hillel Society.

Setton will read from her most recent novel, If I Forget You. “It’s the story of an immigrant family to America through the late 1950s and ’60s, and is filled with music, food, and humor,” she says.

Setton’s first novel, Road to Fez (Counterpoint Press, 2001), received favorable reviews in The Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, American Review, Forward, and Women in Judaism.

“Herself born in Morocco, Setton traces her protagonist’s quests with style and vigor,” states the The Washington Post.

Setton is associate professor of English and creative writing at Georgia College and State University. She has taught creative writing and literature courses to classes ranging from “Semester at Sea” students on a ship sailing around the world, to Mexican poets in Guadalajara, to Israeli soldiers in a kibbutz, as well as to students at Lafayette and the New School for Social Research.

For her work, Setton has received fellowships from the NEA, PEN, Sewanee Writer’s Conference, Great River Arts Institute, Wesleyan Writers Conference, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Yaddo. Her fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in such journals and anthologies as Luna, Nimrod, In Posse Review, ForPoetry, XConnect, International Quarterly, The Denver Quarterly, North American Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and Best Contemporary Jewish Writing (edited by Michael Lerner, Jossey-Bass publishers).