The School of Liberal Arts welcomed Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan for an engaging evening on literary inspiration and craft in fiction, as part of the Carole Barnette Boudreaux ‘65 Great Writers Series. The day after her public lecture and book signing, Egan joined in a discussion on creativity and artificial intelligence with faculty members from both the School of Liberal Arts and School of Science and Engineering.
Attendees packed the newly inaugurated Lake Hall Theatre for the event, a testament to the popularity and staying power of Egan’s work. Egan’s oeuvre includes short stories, novels, and longform journalism; her latest book The Candy House (2022), a companion novel to the 2011 Pulitzer Prize-Winner A Visit From The Good Squad, earned a spot on the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2022 list.
Egan, an Artist-in-Residence in the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania, shared insights into her creative process during the mainstage lecture. An accompanying visual presentation guided the audience through Egan’s approach crafting a chapter of The Candy House titled “Lulu the Spy.” Originally published as a short story in the New Yorker and serialized on X (formerly known as Twitter), the inspiration for the work’s innovative form came from Egan’s domestic world—mainly the lists stored on her phone, which she found took on a surprising narrative quality.
Egan, who writes about authenticity and identity in the ever-changing digital landscape, spoke on the constant external influences on her fiction, and the role of writers as conduits for the world around them. She ended the lecture by emphasizing the importance of reading fiction—as a critical way to “feel connected to the sweep of the human experience”—especially in the attention economy, where deep reading feels like an act of resistance.
At the start of the event, School of Liberal Arts Dean Brian Edwards thanked Carole and Ken Boudreaux, who proudly sat in the front row of the auditorium. The ‘65 Great Writers Series, he explained, seeks to bring in prominent authors not only of great literature, but whose work “animates, contributes to, and helps reframe some of the key issues and questions of our time.” The work of past series authors—Pulitzer Prize-Winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, and novelist Amitav Ghosh—addressed the refugee experience and climate change, respectively.
These successful events illustrate the purpose of the Carole Barnette Boudreaux Creative Writing Endowed Fund, initiated in 2018, which aims to bring creative writers to Tulane to engage and inspire members of the University community. For her part, Egan thanked the School of Liberal Arts community for their “warm embrace.”