Zadie Smith Coming to Moss Arts Center

BLACKSBURG, VA — A partnership between Moss Arts Center, the Virginia Tech creative writing program and VT Women’s Center brings bestseller, Zadie Smith, to campus on March 19, 2019.

“We were trying to find whose an author that really speaks to questions of gender and has been a voice for decades. Zadie Smith seemed like the perfect figure in that way, to celebrate the Women’s Center’s success and cultivate space for conversation in our community for issues such as gender,” said Associate Director of Programming at Moss Arts Center, Jon Catherwood-Ginn. “She seemed like the kind of person who, for her creativity and her intelligence, so robust that we knew would be the perfect artist to satisfy a number of the goals between the three partners.”

The event serves as a celebration of the Women’s Center 25th anniversary and as part of the Virginia Tech English Department’s creative writing program’s Visiting Writer Series. The event will take place in the form of an onstage conversation between Smith, moderator, and audience.

The event will take place Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 7:30 PM, in the Street and Davis Performance Hall, Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre of the Moss Arts Center. Tickets can be purchased in advance at Moss Arts Center or online and at the door. Ticket prices vary for students, faculty/staff, and community members; prices can be found on the Moss Arts Center website. 

Smith is the author of White Teeth, On Beauty, Feel Free and contributes to The New Yorker. Her work focuses on topics such as culture, race, immigration and politics. Attendees can expect the conversation to include these issues as well as gender, in connection to celebrate the Women’s Center anniversary. 

Distinguished Alumni Professor, Lucinda Roy, will be moderating the fifty-minute conversation. Audience members will have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A with Smith. Questions can be asked in-person at the event. A book signing in the center’s lobby will take place afterward, with books available for purchase. 

“Some of the things that she’s done have really energized the literary world and made us understand more about things such as being biracial,” moderator, Lucinda Roy says. “She’s both British white and British black, which is really interesting. She has a kind of child of immigrants sensibility and she understands how complicated it can be to try and navigate two entirely different cultures.” 

Free parking is available at the North End Center or on Virginia Tech’s campus.

For updates on the event check Moss Arts Center social media or the center’s website. Those who purchased tickets in advance will receive email notifications of any changes. 

This is not the first conversation Roy has moderated, she moderated when Cheryl Strayed visited in 2017. “There’s a feeling of intimacy. I’m hoping that will help with the conversation and that the community will really feel that this is our theatre, where we belong,” Dr. Roy continues. “We’ve come to hear someone who’s from the outside and we’re going to welcome her as much as possible and just celebrate together.”