It often feels as if our nation has never been more divided, and new communications technologies often get blamed for that. Historian and journalist Colin Woodard begs to differ. Colin’s new book, Nations Apart: How Clashing Regional Cultures Shattered America, draws on groundbreaking original data and historical insights to argue that many conflicts over today’s hot-button issues have their roots as far back as the colonial period. Alicia Anstead will join Colin onstage to discuss what he has uncovered about the centuries-old regional differences that have brought American democracy to the brink of collapse and to present a powerful story that can bridge our cultural divisions and save the republic. Word audiences will get the first glimpse at Nations Apart, which will be published on November 4.
This event will begin with a reading by Patty Morris of Cape Elizabeth, winner of Word’s second annual writing contest, who will read her short-short story, “Sealy, A Rock.”
Free event
Colin Woodard, a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist, is director of Nationhood Lab Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. A longtime foreign correspondent, he reported from more than 50 countries on seven continents and, as an investigative reporter at Maine’s Portland Press Herald, won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Politico, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian, and dozens of other major publications. A graduate of Tufts University and the University of Chicago and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he lives in Maine.
Alicia Anstead is a writer, editor, producer and educator. She oversees creative productions at the Office for the Arts at Harvard, where she also teaches narrative journalism. She is formerly the executive editor of Inside Arts, the magazine for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals in Washington, DC, and of The Writer magazine in Boston. As an arts reporter at the Bangor Daily News in Maine, she also covered food and food writing (and worked in Maine restaurant kitchens). Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Scientific American, The Harvard Gazette and Art New England. She has been an arts contributor to The Callie Crossley Show and Under the Radar with Callie Crossley on WGBH in Boston and NPR's Morning Edition. An English department graduate of American University (B.A.) and the University of Maine (M.A.), she has been a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University and NEA arts editor program at Duke University. She has been a contributing producer, editor and strategist for APAP|NYC, the largest annual conference of performing arts professionals, the Sphinx Organization where she co-produced the first two SphinxCon conferences on diversity in the arts, the Boston Book Festival, Shakespeare in Stonington at Opera House Arts, Sister Cities International and the National Archives Foundation. (Photo credit: Michele Stapleton)