In tandem with other Madison County libraries, Onedia Public Library is participating in a county-wide read of Sue Monk Kidd’s novel “The Invention of Wings” with a discussion of the book Thursday, October 12, at 7:00 p.m. that will be led by Dr. Roxanna Pisiak, a professor of humanities at Morrisville State College.
“The Invention of Wings” tells the tale of the real-life Sarah Grimke, born in a slave-owning family in South Carolina, who along with her sister Angelina became an outspoken advocate of abolitionism before the Civil War and subsequently of women’s rights. The novel was chosen by county librarians to help mark the Centennial of Women’s Suffrage in New York State.
Dr. Pisiak has been teaching humanities courses at Morrisville for over 20 years. Her special areas of expertise include American literature and culture, film and visual communication. She received the S.U.N.Y. Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2009 and Morrisville’s Distinguished Faculty Award in 2005.
Pisiak was last at the OPL to lecture on “The 19th-CenturyUpstate Response to Women’s Suffrage” in June. She has also appeared at the OPL as the historical commentator and narrator in “Children at Work: Tales of Madison County Childhood” in March 2006 and in “Scott and Zelda: Genius, Love and Madness in the Jazz Age” in February 2003.
Thanks to a grant from Humanities New York in support of the OPL’s centennial celebration of women’s suffrage, a limited number of copies of “The Invention of Wings” is available at the OPL for those who sign up to participate in the October 12 discussion.
For more information, stop by the Oneida Library, 220 Broad St., or call (315) 363-3050.