On October 18th, we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Melanie Brown Lecture Series with the visit to Chatham of acclaimed writer Amy Bloom. The Melanie Brown Lecture Series brings an established author to Chatham every year and allows aspiring writers and the Chatham community at large to interact with them in various settings and learn about their work. The Fourth River is honored to feature a folio of work from the last decade of the lecture series in our current digital issue.

The Melanie Brown Lecturer is supported by an endowment from Melanie and Fred R. Brown established in 2008. The Browns are lifelong Pittsburghers who love books and have crisscrossed the country collecting signed copies of works of fiction, most of which are first editions. The Browns generously donated their vast collection of award winning contemporary fiction to Chatham in 2010. The Melanie and Fred R. Brown Special Collection of Literary Fiction is now permanently housed in the Jennie King Mellon Library. They now spend most of their time in Florida but are frequently back in town. I had a chance to interview Melanie and Fred Brown in advance of their traveling to Pittsburgh this month to attend the lecture.

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The Fourth River: Celebrated author Amy Bloom will be coming to Chatham as the tenth Melanie Brown Lecturer. Are you excited about her visit?

Melanie Brown: We are pretty excited about that. We were excited when it came up as an option. Usually we have some input. Together with Marc Nieson and Sheryl St. Germain we make a decision from several names. They’re already starting to throw up names for next year.