Power of essays to improve political discourse focus of ‘Stop Shouting at Each Other!’

Award-winning writer Mary Collins and her son, Donald Collins, will speak at Yale on Thursday, June 22 at 3:30 p.m. as Poynter Fellows in Journalism.

Award-winning writers Mary Collins and her son, Donald Collins, will speak at Yale on Thursday, June 22 at 3:30 p.m. as Poynter Fellows in Journalism. Their talk, “Stop Shouting at Each Other! Balanced Reporting and the Power of Essay Generative Constructive Dialogue,” will take place in the Connecticut Mental Health Center Auditorium, 34 Park St. It is free and open to the public.

Mary Collins believes that journalism needs to bring the role of the essay back into the forefront of public discourse because it focuses more on reflection, insight, and research, and less on aggressive argument. She and her son wrote candidly about their conflicting points of view concerning Donald’s gender transition in the book “At the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick up the Pieces.” The two said that these personal essays generated more respect and sympathy for each other’s opposing position, and suggest that our social discourse could benefit from a similar process.

The Collins’ talk will be moderated by psychiatry professor Dr. Michael J. Sernyak, who is the director and CEO of the Connecticut Mental Health Center as well as the deputy chair for Clinical Affairs and Program Development. Sernyak is also director of the Division of Public Psychiatry, a component of the Yale School of Medicine.

An award-winning essayist, Mary Collins has written for such publications as Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, garnering awards for her works. In 2003, she wrote “Airborne: A Photobiography of Wilbur and Orville Wright” for National Geographic Books, which won Best Young Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year from American Society of Journalists and Authors. It also earned a starred Kirkus Review, and was recognized as a Top 10 Young Adult Biography by the New York Public Library. In 2010, she won the Grand Prize in Nonfiction at the NYC Indie Book Awards for “American Idle: A Journey Through our Sedentary Culture,” which also received an Honorable Mention for Best Adult Nonfiction Book from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. She currently teaches narrative fiction at Central Connecticut University.

Donald Collin’s two short fiction works, “Jeep, Red” and “Don’t Give Up,” have been published in Cleaver Magazine and Literary Orphans, respectively. His articles and essays have been featured in a variety of magazines and blogs including PopMatters, Next Magazine, BKS Blog, Salon, and Beacon Broadside. He has also published three book excerpts for Vice, Literary Hub, and the Toronto Star, respectively titled “Life as a Trans Frat Bro,” “Finding Middle Ground,” and “On Grief and Rebirth.” Today, he is a bookseller at Wesleyan R.J. Julia’s store in Middletown, CT, and he frequently participates in book signings, readings, and presentations around the country.

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 Ariel Sabar, The Yale Politic, and Whitney Richardson.

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