Reif Larsen, author of the NY Times bestselling novel The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet and Lois Hetland’s former student, will visit classes in the Art Education Department on Monday March 25 and give a public talk at 6:00 pm in Kennedy 406.

He will explore the ways in which visuals can tell stories, and in particular the sometimes fraught relationship between text and image. Drawing upon diverse sources including the marginalia from his own book, airline safety cards, graphic novels, illuminated manuscripts, and the current media’s obsession with infographics, Larsen will unpack the opportunities (and dangers) of visual storytelling, a field of increasing prominence in today’s visual-heavy world. The presentation will also include a short multimedia reading from his novel.

Read Lois Hetland’s letter about this event.

Dear MassArtEd Community,

I’m very excited that my former student, Reif Larsen, is coming to ArtEd as a visiting artist on March 25. Reif’s first novel, The Selected Works of TS Spivet, started a bidding war among publishers because it combines text and image in such a novel way. It’s a regular novel with a graphic novel written in the margins, and the graphic novel is (supposedly) drawn by the 11-year-old genius protagonist. Reif is a generative fountain of ideas, and I’m sure you will enjoy meeting and talking with him. Please plan your schedule to come to his public talk on March 25 at 6 PM in Kennedy 406. He will also be in classes on Monday during the day.

Lois Hetland