The English Department is excited to announce this year’s invited speaker for the Barrs Lecture Series: award-winning memoirist Brian Broome. 

Brian Broome, a poet and screenwriter, is the author of Punch Me Up to the Gods. He is K. Leroy Irvis Fellow and instructor in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Broome has been a finalist in The Moth storytelling competition and won the grand prize in Carnegie Mellon University’s Martin Luther King Writing Awards, in addition to winning the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction in October 2021. He also won a VANN Award from the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation for journalism in 2019. Broome lives in Pittsburgh.

This virtual event will take place over Zoom and is open to all English Department students, staff, and instructors. Those interested in attending are encouraged to read the following chapter from Punch Me Up to the Gods ahead of the event:

https://www.thecut.com/2021/05/excerpt-brian-broome-punch-me-up-to-the-gods.html

Broome will give a short reading, followed by a discussion with the audience moderated by Associate Professor of English Patrick Mullen. Contact Heather Hardy at h.hardy@northeastern.edu for the Zoom link or any questions.