In Celebration of Books

Peng Shepherd In Celebration of Books March 2025

ICB Peng Shepherd

Peng Shepherd is the nationally bestselling, award-winning author of All This and More, The Cartographers, and The Book of M.

Her novels have been acclaimed as a “Best Book of the Year” by the Washington Post, a “Best Book of the Summer” by the Today Show and NPR, and featured in the New York Times, the LA Times, The Atlantic, and on Good Morning America, as well as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. Her work also has been translated into more than ten languages, and optioned for TV and film.

A graduate of New York University’s MFA program, Peng is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She was born in Phoenix, Arizona, where she rode horses and trained in classical ballet, and has lived in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, London, Mexico City, and New York. When not writing, she can be found planning her next trip or haunting local bookstores.

Mission
At Gunston, we believe in the transformative power of language and the study of writing as craft. Our In Celebration of Books program is one way that we instill these values in our students. Each year, we invite a writer of local, regional, and national prominence to our campus. Consistent with our mission of educating “ethically and environmentally minded scholars, citizens, and leaders for our globalized society,” the program features authors from all fields and disciplines. In addition to a public reading or talk, each guest also visits the classroom, where students have the unique opportunity to interact with them in a highly-personalized environment. 

History
For nearly three decades, In Celebration of Books has been a revered tradition at Gunston. It began in the boarding school days, where teachers would dress as their favorite authors. In time, the program evolved into a full day of workshops and readings that brought as many as twelve renowned writers to campus. Our current format is designed to provide students with consistent exposure to living writers, whose areas of expertise align with our curricular programming. Over the course of their four years at Gunston, students can expect to hear a diverse array of voices, from journalists and novelists to poets, historians, environmentalists, and other scientists.

Gunston has hosted such notable writers as the late Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Richard Ben Cramer; Nathaniel Philbrick, National Book Award winner for In the Heart of the Sea; the former poet laureate of Maryland, Michael Glaser; Tom Horton, author of numerous books about the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay region; and poet Nick Flynn, whose memoir was the basis for the film, Being Flynn, starring Robert DeNiro.

Past Authors