Befriending a Wicked Character

Therese Bigelow, Chesapeake’s Public Library assistant director, is bringing her longtime friend Gregory Maguire to the Central Library for a free Thursday program. “It was a friend and family favor,” Bigelow said to the Hampton Roads regarding the arrival of her friend and author of “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” the novel that inspired the Broadway adaption and Tony Award winning play. The book has become an international bestseller and is currently enjoying a three week run at Norfolk’s Chrysler Hall. “I’ve heard him speak many, many times and I’ve always left satisfied. He gives entertaining comments as well as food for thought. He’ll give a rich presentation, and he’ll read from some of his works.” The two met and befriended one another in 1977 at a Simmons College Summer Institute in Children’s Literature in Boston, which Maguire eventually became professor and co-director of and a decade later co-founded the Children’s Literature New England. “I was working at the time as a children’s librarian in Hampton and I was an MA wannabe in children’s literature. We got to know each other better the following year and would see each other every year thereafter. He was living in Boston at the time teaching and working to become a writer.” Get Wicked tickets from StubHub today.

Posted in Uncategorized on May 27, 2009

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