Landiss Lecture - Part of the Presidential Signature Series

Tuesday, February 25, 2025 5:00 PM-7:30 PM

George Shinn Center

Landiss Lecture
 

Hosted by Lipscomb University’s Department of English and Modern Languages

Speaker: Ruta Sepetys
 

Free but registration is requested.

Register
 

About the Speaker:

Ruta Sepetys (Rūta Šepetys) is an internationally acclaimed, #1 New York Times bestselling
author of historical fiction published in over sixty countries and forty languages. Sepetys is
considered a “crossover” novelist as her books are read by both students and adults worldwide.
Winner of the Carnegie Medal, Ruta is renowned for giving voice to underrepresented history
and those who experienced it. Her books have won or been shortlisted for over forty book
prizes, are included on over thirty state reading lists, and are currently in development for film
and television.

Ruta is the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee. Born in Michigan, she was raised in a family of
artists, readers, and music lovers. Ruta is passionate about the power of history and story to
foster global dialogue and connectivity. She has been invited to present at NATO, European
Parliament, the U.S. Capitol, the Library of Congress, and Embassies worldwide. She was
awarded The Rockefeller Foundation’s prestigious Bellagio Fellowship for her studies on human
resilience. The New York Times Book Review declared, “Ruta Sepetys acts as champion of the
interstitial people so often ignored—whole populations lost in the cracks of history.”
Ruta was bestowed the Cross of the Knight of the Order by the President of Lithuania for her
contributions to education and memory preservation and was recently honored with a postage
stamp containing her image. She is extremely proud to be of Baltic heritage, even if that means
she has a name no one can pronounce. Ruta lives with her family in the hills of Tennessee.