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Married Writers Share Entangled Memoirs On Disease

Zach Savich and Hilary Plum headshots with book covers
Courtesy Zach Savich and Hilary Plum
The writers and their works.

Zach Savichand Hilary Plum, a married couple and awarded and acclaimed authors, will share their memoirs in Springfield on Thursday April 6th.

It's part of the UIS Shelterbelt Reading Series. (More info on how to attend the free reading which will take place at the NPR Illinois station, here.) Listen to an interview with the two, who live in Philadelphia, for more about their work and background as writers:

Savich was diagnosed with cancer at age 30 - a few months after his father, a writer as well, passed away from the disease. Savich's book, "Diving Makes the Water Deep", explores illness and living in the past and present. "This book is in some ways an effort to remain interested in the kind of ongoing entanglement of life - even when that life is one marked by treatment and the toxicities of cancer itself and ... being able to do less than you used to do."

Plum's book, "Watchfires", starts with her sitting in a waiting room while Savich undergoes surgery. Meanwhile, on the T.V. is news about the Boston Marathon bombing as it unfolds that day. It's a jumping off point for a book that explores disease in a variety of ways. "I wanted to think about how our political world is structured by metaphors of disease, diseases of the body and the body politic."

Rachel Otwell of the Illinois Times is a former NPR Illinois reporter.
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