On October 15, 2013, Connecticut College welcomed David Sedaris to campus as the speaker at the 16th Daniel Klagsbrun Symposium on Creative Arts and Moral vision.
In 1989 as a living memorial to Daniel Klagsbrun ’86, The Daniel Klagsbrun Symposium was established. Due to the generosity of Daniel’s parents, Connecticut College has been fortunate to have authors including Elie Wiesel, Sandra Cisneros, and Amy Tan speak to students and faculty on campus.
Sedaris is a humorist for NPR, bestselling author, and three time Grammy Award nominee for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. With over seven million copies of his books in print, it is clear that Sedaris is a master of his craft. As he read from a new piece he is currently working on about his experiences as a 13 year old in middle school, the crowd was brought to hysterics. It was incredible to see first hand an author’s work in progress. He took notes on sections that received the strongest laughter, the parts that fell flat, and scribbled in changes as he read along. Even after all of his success as a writer, the process of revision and amount of work that goes into each piece seems to be just as much as with his early work.
Sedaris’ latest book, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, is on sale now and was named Amazon’s Book of the Month.