Award-winning author, professor in the arts at Bard, and Fisher Center Advisory Board member, Neil Gaiman has an astonishingly broad career: from journalism to graphic novels; fiction for adults and children; and writing for film, television, and theater. Over five nights across the Fisher Center’s 20th Anniversary Season, Gaiman will debut a series of five lectures on writing in which he will explore his creative strategies, sharing stories and offering advice—live and in-person at the Fisher Center.

From Neil Gaiman:
“The Fisher Center and Bard College were my first introduction to the beauty of the Hudson Valley and Catskills, for which I am eternally grateful,” said Gaiman. “And now, over a decade later, as a faculty member and proud member of the Fisher Center’s advisory board, my affiliation with Bard has led me to reflect on what it could mean in this time to be a bard – to be part of an ancient lineage of storytellers. In this series of talks, I’ll reflect on our bardic roots, on the traditions and byways that made me a writer, and on the challenges and adventures facing younger writers at this time. It's a way of codifying what I know and have learned in a way that will, I hope, help the next generation of writers and bards take their stories into the world.”

Neil Gaiman: The Bard Lectures is presented as part of the Fisher Center’s 20th Anniversary Season “Breaking Ground.”  This new season reflects the Fisher Center’s role as one of the country’s foremost cross-disciplinary producing institutions and culminates with the groundbreaking for a new performing arts studio building designed by Maya Lin (October 21).

For complete information regarding tickets, special packages, live streaming, and more visit fishercenter.bard.edu or call 845-758-7900.

Fisher Center Presents
Neil Gaiman
The Bard Lectures

Lecture 1 • Why Be a Bard?
Saturday, April 15 at 7 pm

Lecture 2 • A String of Pearls: How We Come to Be Us
Sunday, April 16 at 5 pm

Lecture 3 • Pulling Back the Curtain: How Fiction Works and Why It Still Matters
Thursday, October 12 at 7 pm

Lecture 4 • To Pay the Pied Piper: The Cost of Stories
Friday, October 13 at 7 pm

Lecture 5 • On Endings, Epilogues, and Afters
Saturday, October 14 at 7 pm 

Sosnoff Theater
Tickets start at $25 for each lecture
$5 tickets available for Bard students, faculty, and staff
Livestream available for all lectures: $20 per lectur,e or $75 for all five
Signed books from the author will be available for purchase on-site courtesy of Oblong Books.

Premium Package, $1,000
Includes access to premium seating for all five lectures and a special reception, conversation, and book signing with Neil Gaiman following the first lecture on April 15.

Bio
Neil Gaiman is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author and creator of books, graphic novels, short stories, film, and television for all ages, including Norse Mythology, Neverwhere, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and The View from the Cheap Seats. His fiction has received Newbery, Carnegie, Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Will Eisner Awards. American Gods, based on the 2001 novel, is now a critically acclaimed, Emmy-nominated TV series, and he was the writer and showrunner for the mini-series adaptation of Good Omens, based on the book he co-authored with Sir Terry Pratchett. Gaiman was an Executive Producer and co-showrunner for Netflix’s TV adaptation of his Sandman comic book series. He is currently developing season 2 of Good Omens and a TV adaptation of Anansi Boys. In 2017, Gaiman became a Global Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Originally from England, he now divides his time between Scotland where Good Omens and Anansi Boys are filmed—and the United States, where he is a Professor in the Arts at Bard College. Gaiman attributes his MasterClass on Writing—one of the most popular produced—to his time teaching at Bard. He is a fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.

Funding Credits
 
The Fisher Center’s 20th Anniversary Season is dedicated to the founders of the Fisher Center who have cultivated extraordinary artistic experiences—past, present, and future. We honor the memory of Richard B. Fisher, a true champion of the arts and Bard College, and his visionary leadership. 

The Fisher Center is generously supported by Jeanne Donovan Fisher, the Martin and Toni Sosnoff Foundation, the Advisory Boards of the Fisher Center at Bard and Bard Music Festival, Fisher Center and Bard Music Festival members, the Ettinger Foundation, the Thendara Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Fisher Center LAB has received funding from members of the Live Arts Bard Creative Council, the Lucille Lortel Foundation, and the Fisher Center’s Artistic Innovation Fund, with lead support from Rebecca Gold and S. Asher Gelman ’06 through the March Forth Foundation.

A special thank you to all who have made this special season possible. Thank you for your contribution to our artistic home.

About the Fisher Center at Bard
 
The Fisher Center develops, produces, and presents performing arts across disciplines through new productions and context-rich programs that challenge and inspire. As a premier professional performing arts center and a hub for research and education, the Fisher Center supports artists, students, and audiences in the development and examination of artistic ideas, offering perspectives from the past and present as well as visions of the future. The Fisher Center demonstrates Bard’s commitment to the performing arts as a cultural and educational necessity. Home is the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry and located on the campus of Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley. The Fisher Center offers outstanding programs to many communities, including the students and faculty of Bard College, and audiences in the Hudson Valley, New York City, across the country, and around the world. Building on a 163-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders.

The Center presents more than 200 world-class events and welcomes 50,000 visitors each year. The Fisher Center supports artists at all stages of their careers and employs more than 300 professional artists annually. The Fisher Center is a powerful catalyst for art-making regionally, nationally, and worldwide. Every year it produces 8 to 10 major new works in various disciplines. Over the past five years, its commissioned productions have been seen in more than 100 communities around the world. During the 2018–2019 season, six Fisher Center productions toured nationally and internationally. In 2019, the Fisher Center won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical for Daniel Fish’s production of Oklahoma!, which began its life in 2007 as an undergraduate production at Bard and was produced professionally in the Fisher Center’s SummerScape Festival in 2015 before transferring to New York City.