Lipman Lecture
Learn more about these Colby-based programs run by the Center working with Colby students of all backgrounds and the Waterville public schools.
Lipman Lecture 2026
Ayelet Tsabari
Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 7 p.m.
Bixler 219
The lecture at Colby College is open to the public. The lecture will be followed by a dessert reception and book signing.
About Ayelet Tsabari
Ayelet Tsabari is the author of Songs for the Brokenhearted, winner of a National Jewish Book Award for Fiction and the Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award and A Globe and Mail Best Book of 2024. Her memoir in essays The Art of Leaving, was a finalist for the Writer’s Trust Hilary Weston Prize and The Vine Awards, winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for memoir, and an Apple Books and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2019.
Her first book, the story collection The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction. The book was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and was nominated for The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.
She’s the co-editor of the award-winning anthology Tongues: On Longing and Belonging Through Language. Ayelet teaches creative writing at The University of King’s College MFA in Halifax and at Guelph MFA in Creative Writing in Ontario. She divides her time between Canada and Israel.
Past Lipman Lectures
- 2024-25 — Dara Horn, This Precedented Moment in Jewish History (April 2025)
- 2023-24 — Joey Soloway, producer, director, writer, and creator of the award-winning series Transparent (April 2024)
- 2022-23 — Jodi Kantor, “A Behind the Scenes Look at Investigative Journalism” (March 2023)
- 2021-22 — Ariel Levy, “The Jewish Voice” (April 2022)
- 2018-19 — Masha Gessen, “Where the Jews Aren’t: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region” (Oct 2018)
Lipman Lecture Photos
