Lydia Davis will visit Ballard High School on Nov. 4, courtesy of Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers in the Schools program.

Davis will read from her work, talk about her life in literature and answer questions from the students. She will speak to one class of ninth graders at 10:25 a.m.

The author of four collections of short fiction, a novel and numerous translations of French literature, Davis has always played with, and broken the rules of, fiction.

She has taken everything a textbook story should be – structural devices, plot points, character development – and shaken it up. She has written stories that resist plot, stories with more characters than can be fully developed and stories in the form of poems.

Davis’ work is revered by a Los Angeles Times book reviewer for “defining problems precisely and economically,” for presenting in any given
story “at least two ways of understanding any given situation.”

Kate Moses from Salon writes, "Introspective and subversive, ironic and playful, obsessive and funny, Davis' stories reveal the ratcheting of the imagination and the ineffable movement of the mind over the varied textures of daily life."

Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers in the Schools program places professional local writers in public elementary, middle and high school classrooms to spark interest and develop skills in reading and writing.

Since its founding in 1994, the program has served 67,500 K-12 public
school students and 1,200 teachers in the Puget Sound region. In the 2009-2010 school year, the program has established 20 writer residencies in four districts: Kent, Seattle, Shoreline, and Port Townsend.

By encouraging students to write about what they know best – themselves – Writers in the Schools helps students find their own authentic voices.