'Celebrating the art of the essay' in New Haven

The New Haven Public Library will hold the 5th annual Evening with Anne Fadiman and her Students, celebrating the art of the essay, from 6 to 7 p.m. March 31.

Fadiman has been Yale's Francis Writer-in-Residence since 2005, according to a library statement.

"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," her "account of a Hmong family's interactions with the American medical system, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction," the statement said. She is also the author of two essay collections, Ex Libris and At Large and At Small.

Fadiman will read from her work-in-progress "about the doomed relationship between Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his son Hartley," the statement said.

She has invited three of her most promising writing students to share their profiles of individuals whom they have encountered, including a sculptor, a typewriter repairman, and a driving instructor, the statement said. The students include Riley Scripps Ford, a fiction writer and a columnist for the Yale Daily News; Zara Kessler, co-editor of the Yale Daily News Magazine; and Peter Lu, columnist for the Yale Daily News.

The program will be held at the downtown library, 133 Elm St.; free parking is available. For information visit http://www.fadiman2011.eventbrite.com/ or call the library at 203-946-8835.