‘Weather’ author Jenny Offill comes to UB for a free reading, conversation

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The University at Buffalo Department of English will host a free reading by Jenny Offill, The New York Times bestselling author and writer in residence at Bard College, as part of its Exhibit X Fiction Series, which for nearly 20 years has been showcasing the work of innovative writers through public readings and conversations about contemporary fiction.

Offill, who received a Guggenheim fellowship in 2016, will read new fiction and discuss her 2020 novel “Weather” at the Cinema at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo, on Wednesday, Oct. 25, at 7 p.m.

The reading is free and open to the public.

“Weather,” which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, is told in Offill’s fiercely original fragmentary style that inspires conversations with her readers. The novel is loaded with the chaotic details that overwhelm everyday life set against the looming catastrophe of a planet in crisis, according to Dimitri Anastasopoulos, PhD, associate professor of English and one of the series’ coordinators.

“Every page taps into our fears for the future,” says Anastasopoulos. “Juxtaposing ordinary personal struggles with immense global problems, Offill asks readers to consider how we can find solutions for our troubled world when our attentions are distracted by everyday needs, in which our voices are mediated by techno moguls and social platforms that give a megaphone to trolls and distrust.”

Offill is also the author of “Last Things,” a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction award, and “Dept. of Speculation,” which was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, the Pen-Faulkner Award and the International Dublin Literary Award.

The narrative of “Weather” pivots on the climate crisis and presidential leadership during the Trump administration, but “Weather” isn’t “just” about the environmental crisis, says Christina Milletti, PhD, associate professor of English and one of the series’ coordinators.

“It’s about ‘all’ the weather we encounter, the climates inside and outside our homes that buffet us privately with our families at the kitchen table, and then with the public as soon as we open our laptops,” says Milletti. “The novel’s capsule-sized paragraphs intentionally read like social media posts with their edgy synthesis of ordinary encounters and concerns placed alongside reminders of ongoing catastrophes on a global scale.”

The Exhibit X Fiction Series is a campus and community partnership that allows students to encounter creative new works by groundbreaking authors, while introducing them to downtown Buffalo’s flourishing arts and cultural scene at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, which hosts  events in the Gallery and Cinema spaces. Talking Leaves will provide books for sale as well.

Instructors in the English department’s fiction and literature courses teach each author’s work ahead of that writer’s lecture.

“Exhibit X has always been a reading series that highlights the most innovative fiction writers we’ve come across,” says Milletti. “Each writer we invite demonstrates just how varied, unexpected, meaningful, provocative – even offbeat – fiction can be.”

Exhibit X has shown itself to be a prescient talent gauge, with many previous guests becoming household names and winning major awards, including Percival Everett, who in 2023 won both Yale’s Windham-Campbell Literature Prize and a PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; Brian Evenson, who won a 2023 Berlin Prize; Can Xue, who has twice been longlisted for the International Booker Prize and was favored to win this year’s Nobel Prize in literature; and Victor LaValle, whose Shirley Jackson award winning novel “The Changeling” has now been adapted for Apple TV.

And now with Offill’s visit, Exhibit X can celebrate another highpoint in its history.

“Jenny Offill is at the height of her literary prowess,” says Milletti. “It’s exciting to present such an astonishingly lyrical writer whose fiction captures a snapshot of this fractured yet encyclopedic time in which we are living — how we live each moment in dread as well as hope.”