Virtual Event: Susan Minot

Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes novelist, short story writer, poet, and screenwriter SUSAN MINOT—author of the acclaimed, bestselling novels Monkeys and Evening—for a discussion of her latest story collection, Why I Don't Write. She will be joined in conversation by renowned short story writer AMY HEMPEL, author of Reasons to Live and Sing to It.

Signed Books

We have a limited number of signed books available for attendees of this event, while supplies last. Order Why I Don't Write now for your chance to receive a signed copy!

Contribute to Support Harvard Book Store

While payment is not required, we are suggesting a $3 contribution to support this author series, our staff, and the future of Harvard Book Store—a locally owned, independently run Cambridge institution. In addition, by purchasing a copy of Why I Don't Write  on harvard.com, you support indie bookselling and the writing community during this difficult time.

About Why I Don't Write

A writer dryly catalogs the myriad reasons she cannot write; an artist bicycles through protests in lower Manhattan and ruminates on an elusive lover; an old woman on her deathbed calls out for a man other than her husband; a hapless fifteen-year-old boy finds himself in sexual peril; two young people in the 1990s fall helplessly in love, then bicker just as helplessly, tortured by jealousy and mistrust. In each of these stories Minot explores the difficult geometry of human relations, the lure of love and physical desire, and the lifelong quest for meaning and connection. Her characters are all searching for truth, in feeling and in action, as societal norms are upended and justice and coherence flounder. Urgent and immediate, precisely observed, deeply felt, and gorgeously written, the stories in Why I Don't Write showcase an author at the top of her form.

Praise for Why I Don't Write

"Sterling . . . Pristine . . . fully formed, often erotic, gorgeous, and searing . . . Minot is exceptionally attuned to forces intimate and social, and her gift for potent distillation yields storiesthat are stunning in every sense of the word." —Booklist