Franco-American Women Writers the Topic of Sidore Lecture

KEENE, N.H. 3/16/03 - Franco-American women have long used writing as a path to freedom, says Rhéa Côté Robbins, founder and executive director of the Franco-American Women’s Institute in Maine. Côté Robbins will be this semester’s Sidore lecturer at Keene State College. She will speak on Monday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mabel Brown Room of the Student Center. Her talk is free and open to the public.

In her address, “View, Voice, and Vision: From Writer to Radical,” Côté Robbins will investigate the issues explored by Franco-American women writers over the ages. In her talk, she will describe how issues ranging from pioneer heroines of the 16th century to immigration, family dynamics, and domestic violence have appeared in books by authors such as Corinne Rocheleau Rouleau (Heritage of Peace), Camille Lessard-Bissonnette (The Quiet Evolution of French-Canadian Immigrants in New England), and even Grace Metalious (Peyton Place, The Tight White Collar, and No Adam in Eden).

Côté Robbins is the author of Wednesday’s Child, which chronicles experiences from her life, including her dealing with cancer, and was the 1997 winner of the Maine Chapbook Award. She also wrote a sequel, Down the Plains, and is working on another book, If These Walls Could Talk.

The Sidore Memorial Foundation and the Sidore Lecture Series have been established to support campus presentations by speakers on emerging ideas and to enhance faculty efforts to challenge students and the wider community to participate in dialogue around original and sometimes controversial issues facing society.

For more information, contact Margaret Langford, professor of modern languages at 603-358-2962.