The Denison University Beck Lecture Series features poet and fiction writer Elizabeth Rosner at 8 p.m. on Tuesday (Oct. 29) in the Slayter Hall faculty lounge. This event is free and open to the public.

The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Rosner strives to understand how the human spirit can withstand devastating trauma and find a place for hope alongside sadness and loss. "We are at a historical transition point, right now, in which Holocaust survivors with first-hand testimonies are slowly disappearing," says Rosner. "I feel very strongly that it is my obligation as a daughter of survivors to do my part to continue the conversation."

Her debut novel,The Speed of Light, explores the dynamics among three unforgettable people who are each haunted by past tragedies yet who have kept silent about the events that have shaped their lives. Rosner's earlier chapbook, a collection of poems titledGravity, evolved out of a fictionalized family memoir titledSouvenirs and Silences, originally composed for her creative writing thesis. She says "I feel compelled to explore the effects of inherited grief."

Rosner is a graduate of Stanford University and earned her master of fine arts degree from the University of California at Irvine. Her writing has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Poetry East, Southern Poetry Review, and Another Chicago Magazine, among other publications. After teaching creative writing for 18 years including nine years at Contra Costa College in San Pablo, Calif., Rosner recently retired to work on her writing full-time. She now lives in Berkeley, Calif.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

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