CHQ&A

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Episode Summary

On today's episode guest interviewer David Griffith, vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education, speaks with Alexandria Marzano-Lesnovich, author of “The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir,” winner of the 2018 Chautauqua Prize. Part reportage and part memoir, “The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir” follows a young law student through her early career as she digs into both her own past, and the past of a convicted murderer. In a book 10 years in the making, Marzano-Lesnevich shows how the law is more personal than we would like to believe, creating a “gripping” story of “great importance.” Chautauqua readers called it “an extraordinary memoir” that is “brave and intimate.”

Episode Notes

On today's episode guest interviewer David Griffith, vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education, speaks with Alexandria Marzano-Lesnovich, author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir, winner of the 2018 Chautauqua Prize. Part reportage and part memoir, The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir follows a young law student through her early career as she digs into both her own past, and the past of a convicted murderer. In a book 10 years in the making, Marzano-Lesnevich shows how the law is more personal than we would like to believe, creating a “gripping” story of “great importance.” Chautauqua readers called it “an extraordinary memoir” that is “brave and intimate.”

A 2014 National Endowment for the Arts fellow, Marzano-Lesnevich has received a Rona Jaffe Award and has twice been a fellow at both MacDowell and Yaddo. Alexandria’s essays appear in The New York Times, Oxford American, and the anthologies True Crime and Waveform: Twenty-first Century Essays by Women, as well as many other publications.

Alexandria received The Chautauqua Prize in a public presentation on Friday, Aug. 3.

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich's Aug. 3 presentation in the Hall of Philosophy: