Irish Arts Center and Center for Fiction present
Imagined Biographies

Gavin McCrea and Therese Anne Fowler in conversation, moderated by Julie Buntin

Tuesday, October 20 | 7 pm

At Center for Fiction
17 E 47th Street
New York, NY 10017

A celebration of literary fiction set in the past

Join us on the East Side at Center for Fiction as we welcome writer Gavin McCrea for the launch of his acclaimed debut novel, Mrs. Engels. McCrea will be in conversation with Therese Anne Fowler, The New York Times bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.

McCrea's widely praised Mrs. Engels follows the life of Lizzie Burns, longtime lover of Communist Manifesto co-author Frederick Engels. Lizzie is known to us only through the Marx/Engels correspondence, as she was an illiterate Irish millworker who left no historical record of her own. McCreabrings Lizzie to life with a remarkable voice, following her as the promise of an easy existence in London slips from her view, and in its place, she gains a profound understanding of herself and of the world.

In a conversation moderated by writer Julie Buntin, McCrea and Fowler will discuss their fictional heroines and the historical women who inspired them. The novelists will also share their approaches to research and explore the choices writers make when imagining characters who lived actual lives in the past—documented or otherwise.

Gavin McCrea was born in Dublin in 1978 and has since travelled widely, living in Japan, Belgium and Italy, among other places. He holds a BA and an MA from University College Dublin, and an MA and a PhD from the University of East Anglia. He currently lives between the UK and Spain.

Therese Anne Fowler’s essays have been published internationally in newspapers and magazines such as The Week, the London Telegraph, and Harper's Bazaar, and Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is available in numerous languages worldwide. She has a BA in sociology/cultural anthropology and an MFA in creative writing. A proud member of Phi Beta Kappa and PEN, she nonetheless has failed to move to Brooklyn, residing instead in Raleigh, NC, with author and professor John Kessel.