The evening's conversation explores how a poet and novelist and a medical historian contribute to our understanding of epidemics and the people who confront them. Laura Kasischke, Associate Professor, Residential College and English, and Howard Markel, Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases and Director of the Center for the History of Medicine will reflect on how their research methods, narrative styles, and sense of themselves as authors help shape our knowledge and sentiments about diseases and ourselves.

Laura Kasischke is a poet and fiction writer. She has published five novels, and seven books of poetry, as well as two novels for young adults. The novels "Suspicious River" and "The Life Before Her Eyes" have been adopted for film. She is the recipient of a 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship award. Her new work, "In a Perfect World," is set in a time when the “Phoenix Flu” devastates the country.

Howard Markel is a physician, medical educator, and historian of medicine. He is the author, co-author, co-editor of ten books including the award winning "Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892" and "When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America Since 1900 and the Fears They Have Unleashed." His newest book, on cocaine, Sigmund Freud, and William Halsted is being readied for publication.

Presented by the Author's Forum, a collaboration between the University Library, U- M Institute for the Humanities, Great Lakes Literary Arts Center, and the Ann Arbor Book Festival.

For further details visit: www.lib.umich.edu/gallery; www.lsa.umich.edu/humin; www.aabookfestival.org

Book sale and signing following program.