One of Newsweek's "150 Fearless Women"

Masha Gessen, Moscow-based investigative journalist who visits today 3/8, was recently named one of "150 Fearless Women" by Newsweek/The Daily Beast.

She's the fourth face down in the leftmost column in a mosaic of faces on the Daily Beast webpage.

The text makes note of the fact that "she's been subjected to robberies, threats and intimidation" and that a number of her fellow journalists have been assassinated.

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Tom Perrotta Tonight

Tom Perrotta visits the Writers Institute today for two events.

November 29 (Tuesday)
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center, Uptown Campus
Reading — 8:00 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center, Uptown Campus

Tom Perrotta is the author of masterpieces of satirical fiction set in the American suburbs. His new novel is The Leftovers (2011), the story of ordinary suburbanites who are forced to cope when they are left behind after “the Rapture,” the New Testament apocalypse. The Kirkus reviewer called it Perrotta’s “most ambitious book to date...,” and said, “The premise is as simple as it is startling.” His previous novels include The Abstinence Teacher (2007), and two that were adapted as major motion pictures, Little Children (2004) and Election (1998).

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Election Fraud, Intimidation, Ballot Theft

Election Day may put you in the mood for Election, Tom Perrotta's 1998 novel about a hotly contested election for student body president at a suburban high school. The novel was made into an Oscar-nominated 1999 film starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick.

Perrotta visits the Writers Institute, Tuesday, November 29. He will be speaking about his new novel The Leftovers.

Here's Perrotta in a recent NPR interview:

"I don't feel like I'm a satirist. I don't even think I ever was, but that label has stuck to me because the movie Election was a brilliant satire, and it amped up some elements that were muted in the book to do that. And that's the first way people became familiar with my work. Labels tend to stick and first impressions tend to stick, but I will say that what happens for me is that I do start in a place that feels like it might lead to a satire, and then the process of spending time with characters — getting inside their heads, trying to see the world the way they see it — pulls me away from satire. And I think a lot of times you can't see where you're going to end up."

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