Short story, book, play, film, and television discussion classes are scattered throughout the year to give you ample time for pleasure reading and viewing between each one. Pick a course or two to suit your literary tastes and register today!

Keep scrolling to read about our four special literary events next month.

Author Visit: Chris Bohjalian

The Princess of Las Vegas (2024)

Monday, June 3 • 1:00pm-2:30pm • Zoom •

Course 12607 • $30

Meet Chris Bohjalian, bestselling author of two dozen books, in conversation with Anna Katsavos as they discuss Bohjalian's latest fiction, The Princess of Las Vegas (2024). The mystery weaves a twisted tale of organized crime, cryptocurrency, and family secrets surrounding Crissy Dowling, a Princess Diana impersonator, and her estranged sister and near look-alike Betsy. Crissy channels the princess as a means of escape from her messy life. Shortly after Betsy moves to Las Vegas with her boyfriend and newly adopted 13-year old daughter in tow, two owners of the casino where Crissy performs are found dead within days of each other. As the page-turner of a plot unfolds, the sisters are caught in the middle of a dangerous game of money and murder. Time will be reserved for audience Q&A.

CHRIS BOHJALIAN, a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences, is a New York Times bestselling author of 24 books as well as three plays. He is known for riveting historical fiction, such as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls, page-turning thrillers such as The Lioness, and literary fiction such as Midwives and The Double Bind. His works have been translated into 35 languages, three have been made into movies (Midwives, Secrets of Eden, and Past the Bleachers), and one was turned into a hit television series (The Flight Attendant). He has received numerous awards, including the Walter Cerf Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts, the Sarah Josepha Hale Literary Award, and the ANCA Freedom Award. He has written for a wide variety of magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe. He graduated from Amherst College and has been awarded honorary degrees from Amherst, Champlain College, and Castleton University.

ANNA KATSAVOS, PhD, is an experienced book group facilitator. A SUNY Professor Emerita of English Literature and Women’s Studies, she has received numerous awards for teaching, and her scholarship has been published in a variety of literary journals. She has interviewed many best-selling authors and has presented interactive programs focusing on a wide range of women’s issues. Additionally, she conducts writing, editing and publishing workshops.

Author Visit: Mimi Zieman

Tap Dancing on Everest (2024)

Friday, June 7 • 12:00pm-2:00pm • Beach Point Club •

Course 12597 • $75

Meet Mimi Zieman, author of the memoir Tap Dancing on Everest (due out in April) at this lunch and learn event moderated by Lori Rotskoff. Hear the details of Zieman's dangerous ascent of Mount Everest as a 25-year old medical student. Taking a route up the Eastern face, a treacherous side that had been summited successfully only once before, Zieman and her three male climbing companions chose to forego supplemental oxygen, sherpas, or chance for rescue. Suspenseful and inspiring, Zieman weaves her background as a child of an immigrant Holocaust survivor into the story recounting the risks of this irresistible personal wilderness challenge. Time will be reserved for audience Q&A. Class fee includes lunch (choice of entree, beverages, and cookies), plus a copy of Zieman's book.

MIMI ZIEMAN is a physician, speaker, women’s health advocate, and author. In addition to her memoir Tap Dancing on Everest, she has also written the play The Post-Roe Monologues, co-authored sixteen editions of Managing Contraception, and published pieces in Newsweek, Ms. Magazine, NBC News THINK, The Sun Magazine, and elsewhere. She has previously served on the faculty of Emory University School of Medicine, was a founding member of the Society of Family Planning, and participated in the CDC committees that wrote guidelines concerning contraceptive care.

LORI ROTSKOFF is a cultural historian, writer, educator, and public speaker specializing in memoirs and narrative nonfiction, childhood and youth, women’s and gender studies, and arts and culture. She studied history and literature at Northwestern University and earned a PhD in American Studies at Yale.

Author Visit: Ellen Feldman

The Trouble with You Las Vegas (2024)

Wednesday, June 12 • 1:00pm-2:30pm • Scarsdale Public Library •

Course 12612 • $30

Ellen Feldman, author of nine novels, will join Elyse Mall Klayman to discuss her latest work The Trouble With You (2024). Set in New York City in the heady aftermath of World War II, the book tells the story of a young woman whose rosy future is upended in a single instant. Fanny is a young mother torn between her cousin Mimi, who is determined to keep her a “nice girl” — the kind that marries a doctor — and her aunt Rose, who has a rebellious past of her own. Struggling to raise her young daughter and forge a new life by sheer will and pluck, she takes a job in the entertainment business and comes face to face with the blacklist which is destroying careers and wrecking lives. Ultimately, she must decide between playing it safe or doing what she knows is right in a world that — to contemporary readers — seems at once light years away and strangely immediate. Time will be reserved for Q&A. Registered students will each receive a copy of the book.

ELLEN FELDMAN, a 2009 Guggenheim fellow, is the author of The Living and the Lost (winner of Long Island Reads award), Paris Never Leaves You (translated into thirteen languages), Terrible Virtue (optioned by Black Bicycle for a feature film), The Unwitting, Next to Love, Scottsboro (shortlisted for the Orange Prize), The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank (a New York Times Book Review “Editors’ Choice”), Lucy, and, her most recent novel, The Trouble With You (2024). Feldman grew up in northern New Jersey and attended Bryn Mawr College, from which she received a BA. and an MA in modern history. After further graduate studies at Columbia University, she worked for a New York publishing house.

ELYSE MALL KLAYMAN spent close to 20 years working in higher education, first at NYU's journalism school, then at NYU Law, where she created and led the communications team. Klayman has written and edited for various magazines and has been freelancing recently for a new publication about the exploding sport of pickleball.

Triple Play: A Novel, Nibbles, and Games

Author Visit: Debra Green Feldman

Mahjong at Mara's (2024)

Friday, June 14 • 11:00am-12:30pm •

Westchester Reform Temple •

Course 12528 (author visit only) • $40 or

Course 12527 (author visit plus open play) • $200 (table for four)

Calling all mah jongg and canasta players for a midday author visit, light lunch, and two-hours of open play.

Meet Debra Green Feldman as she discusses her book, Mahjong at Mara's (2024). Her latest novel contains an endearing and diverse cast of characters set in suburban New Jersey. Protagonist Lila and her teenage son Dante find solace amidst a local group of mahjong-playing octogenarians. As new neighbors and Dante's friends enter the mix, all their lives take surprising turns that raise questions about concepts of family, loyalty, and love. After the book talk, enjoy a light lunch and then two hours of open play of either canasta or mah jongg. Bring your own tiles, cards and foursomes!

DEBRA GREEN FELDMAN is the author of Mahjong At Mara's (2024) and The Convention of Wives (2022). She received a BA from Rutgers University and an MPH from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Scarsdale Adult School | 914-723-2325 | P.O. Box 205, Scarsdale, NY 10583 | www.ScarsdaleAdultSchool.org

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