Award-winning producer, acclaimed author and editor, and founder of the StoryCorps Project, Dave Isay, will speak at Indiana University East on Tuesday, October 16, as part of the “One Book, Many Voices” project.  Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and the event will begin at 6 p.m. in Vivian Auditorium, located in Whitewater Hall.

Free tickets are available now at the Office of the Bursar, located on the first floor of Whitewater Hall in room 102. When all tickets for seating in Vivian Auditorium are taken, tickets for overflow seating on campus will be made available and the talk will be streamed live to these locations.

Isay will sign books following his talk, and copies of the book will be available for purchase.

Isay’s visit to Richmond is the featured event of the “One Book, Many Voices” project launched and coordinated by IU East. The mission of the project is to foster a campus and community discussion about themes in and ideas inspired by the selected text, Listening Is an Act of Love, in an effort to develop camaraderie, inform knowledge, and inspire action towards positive civic engagement and improvement.

Katherine Frank, dean of the IU East School of Humanities and Social Sciences, said the project is designed to pull together the community in productive conversation about themes in the book and connections that help us to better understand ourselves and our relation to the past, present, and future of our community.

“The book is accessible, relevant, and engaging, and once you start reading it, it is difficult to put down,” Frank said. “We are so lucky that Dave Isay will be here to talk not only about the book, but also about how the StoryCorps project shows us how productive conversation and listening can lead to real and meaningful change within a community. As we learn from listening to StoryCorps and reading the work that has emerged from this organization, everyone has a story to tell, and everyone’s story matters.”

Isay’s talk is titled “An American Revolution: How the Act of Listening Can Change the Fabric of Our Society.” He will discuss some of the most remarkable stories from the already vast collection and show how these narratives create a moving portrait of American life. The voices here connect us to real people and their lives-to their experiences of profound joy, sadness, courage and despair, to good times and hard times, to good deeds and misdeeds.

In this presentation, Isay will remind the audience of how rich and varied the American storybook truly is, how resistant to easy categorization or caricature. Above all, his talk honors the gift each StoryCorps participant has made, from the raw material of his or her life, to the Americans who will come after. We are our history, individually and collectively, and Isay’s book Listening Is an Act of Love touchingly reminds us of this powerful truth.

Isay will also be the featured speaker at IU East’s Spirit of Philanthropy Luncheon on Wednesday, October 17, at Forest Hills Country Club. For more information about the event or to RSVP, contact Stephanie Hays-Mussoni, director of Gift Development, at (765) 973-8331 or email shaysmus@iue.edu.