FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: 8/28/25
For More Information: Contact The Welles-Turner Memorial Library Second Century Fundy
Registration
Bestselling, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Geraldine Brooks is Coming to Glastonbury for Free Talk
2 p.m., September 28, 2025
Smith Middle School
216 Addison Road,
Glastonbury, CT
Sponsored by:
Welles-Turner Memorial Library Second Century Fund
New York Times-bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks is coming to Glastonbury on Sept. 28 to discuss “The Art of the Historical Novel: Making Fiction from Fact”. Jillian Puzzo, manager of independent bookseller River Bend Books, will moderate the event.
The conversation, which will be held at the Smith Middle School, is free and is sponsored by Glastonbury’s Welles-Turner Memorial Library Second Century Fund.
Ms. Brooks writes impeccably researched historical novels including, Horse, The Secret Chord, People of the Book, Year of Wonders, Caleb’s Crossing and the Pulitzer Prize-winning March. She recently published Memorial Days, a beautiful and touching memoir about her partner of thirty years, Tony Horowitz, who died in 2019.
A former Wall Street Journal correspondent for Bosnia, Somalia, and the Middle East, Brooks delves deeply into history with a journalist’s eye for detail and a master storyteller’s sense of character.
Ms. Brooks’s presentation is being sponsored by The Welles-Turner Memorial Library Second Century Fund, a long-term supporter of the Library. The charitable and educational mission of this publicly supported, not-for-profit organization is to help meet the long-term and large-scale needs of the library. Ginny Roscoe, president of the Second Century Fund, said the event is designed to “expand the exposure of the Glastonbury’s library, increase awareness of the Second Century Fund and it’s fund-raising efforts to support the library, enrich our community through literature, and, in this instance, to introduce Glastonbury’s readers to one of the most influential historical novelists of our time.”
The event is free of charge, Roscoe said, noting that the Second Century Fund is proud to promote Welles-Turner Memorial Library, which was recently voted the best library in the Hartford area in the Hartford Courant’s Best of Hartford 2025.
Born in Australia, Ms. Brook’s fiction debut, Years of Wonder: A Novel of the Plague, was published in ten countries and was a 2001 Notable Book of the Year for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune.
For her second novel, “March,” Brooks was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and her novels People of the Book, Caleb’s Crossing, The Secret Chord and Horse all were New York Times best sellers.
Ms. Brooks also the author of nonfiction works including, Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, and Foreign Correspondence: A Penpal’s Journey from Down Under to All Over, and The Idea of Home. Her latest book, Memorial Days, published this year.
Beginning her career at The Sydney Morning Herald, Ms. Brooks later moved to the United States to pursue a Master’s degree from Columbia Journalism School in New York City. She then spent 11 years as correspondent at The Wall Street Journal, where she covered crises in the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. Ms. Brooks was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University in fall 2005 and was the recipient of the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement.
While there is no charge for the talk, the Second Century Fund asks that you pre-register at www.wtml2cf.org
Light refreshments will be provided at the event.
