Literary Cocktail Hour
The Literary Cocktail Hour is a fun, informal monthly event featuring a pair (or more) of speakers in an entertaining, illuminating online event based on the notion of a cocktail hour.
Online and free!
The Festival will host James Schiff and Michael Updike on Wednesday, May 13, 2026 online for a virtual cocktail hour at 5:00pm (EST). The event is FREE and open to the public. The Festival is very excited to host James Schiff in conversation with John Updike’s son Michael for a fascinating literary conversation focused around Schiff’s latest book The Selected Letters of John Updike. John Updike remains one of the most admired and prolific voices in American Literature. Over five decades he produced novels, short stories, poems, criticism, and essays that examine faith and art, desire, and the American experience in all its complexity. His work, most famously “The Rabbit Novels”, earned him two Pulitzer Prizes and a place in the canon of 20th Century fiction. But, beyond his published pages, Updike was a dedicated correspondent. He wrote thousands of letters to family, friends, editors, and fellow writers an ongoing intimate conversation that reveals the man behind the meticulous prose. Now in the new book, Selected Letters of John Updike, editor James Schiff offers readers a window into that private world drawing from decades of correspondence. Schiff presents a portrait of Updike is both craftsman and confidante, generous, witty, and endlessly reflective about writing and life. The May 2026 cocktail hour will include:
James Schiff was born and raised in Cincinnati. He received his B.A. from Duke University, his M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University, and is Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati. He is the author or editor of six books on contemporary American fiction, including John Updike Revisited and Understanding Reynolds Price. In 2016, he was named by the John H. Updike Literary Trust to edit a volume of the author’s letters, Selected Letters of John Updike. He is currently working on a biography of Updike and is the editor of The John Updike Review.
Michael Updike, son of John Updike, spent his childhood in Ipswich Massachusetts and has lived in Newburyport/Newbury since 1992. He is an artist, designer and sculptor. for more than three decades he had designed for Mariposa and import tabletop company. For the past fifteen years he worked with stone and exhibits his carved slate tiles in galleries and art festivals across New England. This winter he has presented readings of the recently published Selected Letters of John Updike, edited by James Schiff. He is currently serving on the John Updike Literary Trust.
John Updike
