Peter Conners, Beyond the Edge of Suffering: Neilly Lecture Series

After a decade of exclusively writing nonfiction books about music and counterculture, the pandemic pushed Conners back into writing prose poetry. In his talk, Conners will read from and discuss his book, sharing personal stories about the origins of the prose poetry/flash fiction collection. A Q&A session and book signing will follow.

Conners has published 11 books of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, and edited dozens of volumes of poetry and prose. His nonfiction books – Cornell '77, Growing Up Dead, JAMerica, and White Hand Society — have garnered him a reputation as a leading chronicler of the Grateful Dead, jam band, and countercultural community. In 2017, Cornell '77: The Music, Myth and Magnificence of the Grateful Dead's Concert at Barton Hall was included in the Grammy-nominated Grateful Dead box set, May 1977: Get Shown the Light. Conners currently lives with his family in Rochester, NY. He is executive director and publisher of the award-winning independent publishing house BOA Editions, Ltd.