Making Human Connections in a Digital World
May 6, 2005
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Worcester, MA

About Our Guest Speakers
	RICHARD RUSSO Richard Russo is regarded as the best writer about small-town America since Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis. When Russo left his own native small town in upstate New York, it was with hopes of becoming a college professor. But during his graduate studies, he began to have second thoughts about the academic life. While finishing up his doctorate, he took a creative writing class; and a new career path opened in front of him. Russo’s first novel set the tone for much of his later work. The story of an ailing industrial town and the interwoven lives of its inhabitants, MOHAWK won critical praise for its witty, engaging style. The fictional town of Mohawk, N.Y., also provided the setting for Russo’s second novel, THE RISK POOL. His third novel, NOBODY’S FOOL, the story of a divorced and underemployed 60-year-old man coping with the sudden reappearance of his estranged son, was made into a film by Robert Benton, starring Paul Newman. Russo next drew on some of his experiences in academia for STRAIGHT MAN, which chronicles the exploits of an oddball professor at a third-rate university. Russo returned to the blue-collar characters and small-town setting of his earlier novels for the Pulitzer Prize-winning EMPIRE FALLS, this time exploring past and present relationships in a once-thriving town in Maine whose textile mill and shirt factory have gone bust. “There’s a version of myself that I still see in a kind of alternative universe and it’s some small town in upstate New York or someplace like that,” Russo said in an interview. That ability to envision himself in the bars and diners of small-town America has served him well. Russo published his first short story collection, THE WHORE’S CHILD, in 2002. Russo recently completed work on a new novel, and the screenplay for “Empire Falls” (for Paul Newman and HBO) is soon to be released.  He lives with his wife in coastal Maine.
	JUDITH DONATH Judith Donath, head of the Lab's Sociable Media group, explores the social side of computing, building innovative interfaces for the online communities, virtual identities, and computer-mediated collaborations that have emerged with the convergence of computing and communication. She is the creator of numerous projects that address the problem of design for social interaction, such as Visual Who (a visualization of activity and affiliations in a virtual community), Chat Circles, and Loom2 (a visualization tool for Usenet groups). She received a PhD and an MS in media arts and sciences from MIT and a BA in history from Yale University. Donath has worked professionally as a designer and builder of educational software and experimental media.

May 5, 2005