Sustainable development in Haiti focus of lecture by writer Amy Wilentz

Amy Wilentz, an acclaimed writer and journalist, will speak at Yale on Thursday, Oct. 16 as a Poynter Fellow in Journalism.

Her talk, “Haiti: Towards Sustainable Development” will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Gordon Parks Room, 81 Wall St. It is free and open to the public.

Wilentz has written a prodigious number of books, including “Farewell Fred Voodoo” (2013), “The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier” (1989), “Martyrs’ Crossing” (2000), and “I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen: Coming to California in the Age of Schwarzenegger” (2006). She is the former Jerusalem correspondent for The New Yorker and a long-time contributing editor at The Nation. She also teaches her craft at the Literary Journalism program at the University of California-Irvine.

Her work has garnered her numerous accolades over the years. She has received the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN Martha Albrand Non-Fiction Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award. She was also a 1990 nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The Poynter Fellowship in Journalism was established by Nelson Poynter, who received his master’s degree in 1927 from Yale. The fellowship brings to campus journalists from a wide variety of media outlets who have made significant contributions to their field. Among recent Poynter fellows are Michael Forsythe, Seymour Hersh, and Emily Nussbaum.