University of New England

Award-winning writer Dava Sobel to discuss the challenge of writing about science and history for a general audience April 19-20

Dava Sobel, award-winning writer of Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, and former New York Times science reporter, will be speaking on two different dates at the University of New England.

She will speak on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. in the MWWC Sarton Room, Abplanalp Library, on the Westbrook College Campus, 716 Stevens Avenue in Portland, part of UNE’s Maine Women Writers Collection Spring 2006 Event Series.

On Thursday, April 20, 2006 Sobel will also present a lecture at 12:00 p.m. in the St. Francis Room, Jack S. Ketchum Library, on the University Campus, 11 Hills Beach Road in Biddeford. A book sale and signing will take place prior to the lecture at 11:30 a.m.

She will discuss the art and challenges of writing about science and the history of science for a general audience. This lecture is part of the Core Connections Spring Lecture Series focusing on “The Art of Science/ The Science of Art”.

Both lectures are free and open to the public.

Dava Sobel
Sobel is an award-winning writer and former New York Times science reporter who has contributed articles to Audubon, Discover, Life, The New Yorker and Harvard Magazine, writing about scientific research and the history of science.

Based on 124 surviving letters to Galileo from his eldest child, Sobel’s Galileo’s Daughter treats the renaissance scientist’s life and times and reveals his relationship with his daughter, Suor Maria Celeste, a Poor Clare nun. A sequel, Letters to Father, containing the full text of Galileo’s daughter’s correspondence was published in 2001.

Longitude, now in its twenty-ninth hardcover printing, became an international bestseller and won several important book awards, including the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Sobel holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from the University of Bath, England and Middlebury College, Vermont. She received the Harrison medal from the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in October 2004 in recognition of her contribution to increasing awareness of the science of horology, or measuring time, by the general public, through her writing and lectures.

For more information on upcoming MWWC Spring 2006 events, visit www.une.edu/mwwc or contact Cally Gurley at 207-221-4324 or cgurley@une.edu.

For more information on the Core Connections Spring Lecture Series, visit www.une.edu/cas/core/lectures.asp or contact Elizabeth De Wolfe at 207-602-2322 or edewolfe@une.edu.

(Press release issued March 6, 2006)