Writers Talking: Aífe Murray December 12, 2010

Aífe Murray presents a reading and discussion of her new work, "Maid as Muse: How Servants Changed Emily Dickinson's Life and Language."

What if the long held image of Emily Dickson as reclusive poet shunning all outsiders is wrong? What if she lead a rich social life in the company of her servants, especially one Margeret Maher, who worked for the family for years and was her constant companion in the kitchen where she wrote? In "Maid as Muse," Murray presents an intimate, densely realized story of joined lives between Emily Dickinson and her domestic servants. Murray reveals how Margaret Maher and the other servants influenced the cultural outlook, fashion, artistic subject, and even poetic style of Emily Dickinson.

Murray has been in residence at the Emily Dickinson Museum; she conceived and has led several public walking tours of Amherst from the perspective of the Dickinson servants; and she created Art of Service, an artists' book collaboration with the present-day housecleaners and gardeners of the Dickinson Museum. She was an affiliated scholar with the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University and named the 2007 Scholar in Amherst by the Emily Dickinson International Society. She lives in San Francisco.

In the U.S. Bank Room.
Space at library programs is limited. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Official Website: http://www.multcolib.org/events/writers.html