Boston Book Festival

The thoughtful and creative novelists featured in this session all chose as their inspiration the lives of other creative people—artists and writers—thereby shedding light not only on historical figures but also on the creative process. Dawn Tripp, author of the national bestseller Georgia, vigorously imagines the visual artist Georgia O’Keeffe’s early career and her tumultuous relationship with Alfred Stieglitz. Dinitia Smith, in The Honeymoon, offers a complex portrait of genius in her book based on the later life of Victorian novelist George Eliot. And, in Monterey Bay, Lindsay Hatton portrays the novelist John Steinbeck as a vivid character, set amid the environs of Cannery Row. Christina Thompson, editor of the Harvard Review, will lead a discussion about fiction, inspiration, and the complex, fiction-worthy lives of artistic visionaries. Sponsored by Other Press.