Author Talk Nov 7: Eleni Sikelianos
In partnership with Lighthouse Works, join us at the Library for an unforgettable evening with author and poet Eleni Sikelianos, who will read from her new hybrid memoir, Memory Rehearsal – described as “A genre-busting encounter between a poet and her ancestral past documenting a startling intersection of queer history, ancient theater, utopian visions, and modern poetry.”
DATE: Saturday, November 7, 2026
TIME: 5:00 pm drinks, reading to begin at 5:30 pm, followed by a conversation with Anna Noyes, and audience Q&A
LOCATION: Fishers Island Library
Memory Rehearsal was named one of Publishers Weekly’s Most Anticipated Books & Library Journal’s Big Books of the Year.
Eleni Sikelianos has translated three books from French, by Jacques Roubaud, Sabine Macher, and Mohamed Leftah, and her own work has been translated into over a dozen languages, with seven books in French and two in Greek.
Her honors include two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and two Gertrude Stein Awards, a Fulbright, a Seeger Fellowship at Princeton, a New York Foundation for the Arts Award, the James D. Phelan award, and residencies at Ucross, Bogliasco, Yaddo, and Djerassi. Her work has been anthologized in many places: The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Poetry, Norton’s American Hybrid, Satellite Convulsions: Poems from Tin House, A Best of Fence, Out of Everywhere: Linguistically Innovative Women Poets in North American and the UK, etc; and has appeared in New York Times Magazine, BOMB, Conjunctions, Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, and more. Eleni has participated in international poetry festivals, including the Centre National du Livre’s Belles Etrangères, the Days of Poetry and Wine in Slovenia, the Barcelona Poetry Festival, Masnaa in Morocco, A Voz Alta in Mexico City, Metropole Bleu in Montreal, and Poetry International in Greece
Dedicated to the many ways poetry manifests in communities, Sikelianos has taught workshops in public schools, homeless shelters, and prisons. She now teaches Literary Arts at Brown University and is frequently on guest faculty for the Naropa Summer Writing Program. The great granddaughter of Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos and theater director Eva Palmer Sikelianos, she shares her days with the novelist Laird Hunt and their daughter Eva Grace.
This program is co-hosted by Lighthouse Works and presented as part of the Harry S. Parker III Visiting Artist Program, which brings distinguished writers and artists to Fishers Island to engage with Lighthouse Works Fellows and the island community.
