Garrard Conley and Spencer Reece

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | Garrard Conley and Spencer Reece will read from their recent work as part of the Writers Reading series.

Garrard Conley is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Boy Erased and the novel All the World Beside, as well as the creator and co-producer of the podcast UnErased: The History of Conversion Therapy in America. His work has been published by The New York Times, Oxford American, Time, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among others. He is an assistant professor of creative writing at Kennesaw State University.

In 2003, Spencer Reece authored The Clerk's Tale, selected by Louise Glück, awarded the Bakeless Prize, and recognized with an award from the Library of Congress. In 2014, The Road to Emmaus was published, long-listed for the National Book Award, short-listed for the Griffin Prize. In 2017, Reece edited a bilingual anthology of poems by the abandoned girls of Our Little Roses, Counting Time Like People Count Stars. The work was featured in an award-winning documentary film, Voices Beyond the Wall: 12 Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World. In 2021, two new works appeared, nonfiction and watercolors—The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir and All The Beauty Still Left: A Poet’s Painted Book of Hours. An Episciopal priest, he served in San Pedro Sula, Honduras; Madrid, Spain; New York City, New York. He is the vicar of St. Paul’s, Wickford, Rhode Island. More than a decade in the making, Acts is his long-awaited third collection of poems.