BUFFALO, NY – The Canisius University Contemporary Writers Series is excited to announce that Clair Wills will be the featured speaker at the 20th annual Hassett Reading. Wills is the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge. Her lecture, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled for Tuesday, October 8 at 7:00 p.m. in the Montante Cultural Center; doors open at 6:30 p.m. Wills lecture will be followed by a question-and-answer session and reception.
Clair Wills is renowned for her contributions to literature and history. Her acclaimed works include “Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain,” which received the Irish Times International Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award. Wills is also the author of “That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland During the Second World War,” recipient of a PEN Hessell-Tiltman History Prize. Her most recent book, “Missing Persons, or, My Grandmother’s Secrets,” is part memoir, part social history, and “explores the holes in the fabric of modern Ireland, and in her own family story.”
In addition to her book-length works, Wills is a frequent contributor to prominent literary journals such as the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books.
Founded with a grant from the John R. Oishei Foundation and continued through the Peter Canisius Distinguished Teaching Professorship Program, the Contemporary Writers Series is generously supported today by the Hassett, Scoma and Lowery Endowments and with the cooperation of The Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, Just Buffalo Literary Center, the Center for Urban Education and Talking Leaves Books.
For more information on Clair Wills visit or to view a livestream of the event, Email Mick Cochrane, PhD, professor of English and series coordinator, at @email.
Canisius was founded in 1870 in Buffalo, NY, and is one of 27 Jesuit colleges and universities in the U.S. Consistently ranked among the top institutions in the Northeast, Canisius offers undergraduate, graduate and pre-professional programs distinguished by close student-faculty collaboration, mentoring and an emphasis on ethical, purpose-driven leadership.
