BELFAST — Left Bank Books, in downtown Belfast, invites the public to meet internationally acclaimed author Richard Russo at a talk and book signing on Thursday, May 15, at 6:30 p.m. The free event will be held at The First Church in Belfast, located across the street from the bookshop. Russo is celebrating that week’s release of Life and Art, a collection of tender, insightful, and extraordinarily intimate essays, according to a news release.

Through thirteen essays, Russo, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Empire Falls, explores his upbringing in Gloversville, a blue-collar town in upstate New York, and his artistic process, including his thoughts on film— he has written screenplays for several of his books, including an HBO miniseries for Empire Falls.

The twin subjects of life and art, and how they inform each other and how the stories we tell ourselves about both, Russo writes, shape our understanding of the world around us. In “Stiff Neck,” he writes of the exasperating fault lines exposed within his own family when his wife’s sister and her husband, proudly unvaccinated, develop COVID. In “Triage,” he details with heartbreaking vividness the terror of seeing his seven-year-old grandson in critical condition. And in “Ghosts,” he revisits Gloversville, his home town that gave rise to the now-legendary fictional town of North Bath. There, Russo confronts the specter of its richly populated past and its ghostly present.

Russo is the author of nine novels, two collections of short stories; a memoir; and one previous collection of essays. In 2016 he was given the Indie Champion Award by the American Booksellers Association and in 2017 he received France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine.

Reservations can be made by calling 207-338-9009 or emailing info@leftbankbookshop.com.

Doors to The First Church will open at 6:00 p.m., and Russo’s books will be available for purchase at the event.