Best-Selling Author Claire Dederer to Discuss ‘Monsters’ at VersoFest 2026 in Westport
Best-selling memoirist and critic Claire Dederer will appear at The Westport Library on Saturday, March 28, as part of VersoFest 2026, the library’s annual music and media conference and festival.
Dederer will discuss her nationally acclaimed book, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, in conversation with New York-based journalist and art critic Hilarie M. Sheets. The event begins at 1 p.m. in the library’s Trefz Forum. Admission is free, though registration is required.
In Monsters, Dederer examines the moral tension audiences face when they discover that artists whose work they admire have committed harmful acts. The book expands on her 2017 essay for The Paris Review, “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?,” which went viral internationally.
Blending memoir, criticism, and cultural analysis, Monsters was named a New York Times Notable Book and was included on several best-of-2023 lists, including those from The Washington Post and The New Yorker.
Dederer is also the author of Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning and the New York Times best-seller Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses. A longtime contributor to The New York Times, her work has appeared in publications including The Atlantic, The Nation, and New York Magazine. She began her career as chief film critic for Seattle Weekly and lives in Seattle.
Sheets covers the art world for The New York Times and serves as a contributing editor to Galerie magazine. Her reporting frequently focuses on public art and underrepresented artists.
Copies of Monsters will be available for purchase at the event.
VersoFest 2026 features a lineup of authors and musicians, including Susanna Hoffs, Ani DiFranco, Wyclef Jean, Gina Gershon, and David J.
Additional information and registration details are available at versofest.org.
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