THE AFTERLIFE OF ART

Once a book is published, it’s no longer in the author’s hands—and what was once a highly controlled process is now open for adaptation.
About this Event

“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it,” wrote Samuel Johnson.
Writers Sigrid Nunez, Peter Cameron, Ben Shattuck, and Nadia Conners gather on the second day of The Rough Notes Festival to discuss The Afterlife of Art. That is, once a book is published, it’s no longer in the author’s hands and what was once a highly controlled process—a sort of private communion between author and text—is now open for public consumption, commentary, and adaptation. Whether it’s seeing their work interpreted by another artist on the silver screen, or re-engaging with their work themselves, this panel examines art as an iterative process—stories with afterlives that never end.
ABOUT THE ROUGH NOTES FESTIVAL

Presented by Kinderhook Books, the three-day event is, at its core, a literary festival—but it also celebrates the craft of writing in all its forms: songwriting, stand-up comedy, screenwriting, art, design, and more.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Peter Cameron
Peter is the author of seven novels and three collections of stories. His book, What Happens at Night is currently being adapted into a film directed by Martin Scorsese and will star Leonardo di Caprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Mads Mikkelsen, Patricia Clarkson and Jared Harris. His short fiction and poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Mademoiselle, Rolling Stone, Grand Street, The New Republic, and The Yale Review. He has taught at Columbia, Oberlin, Yale, Sarah Lawrence, and The New School. Photo by Orson Santos.
Sigrid Nunez
Sigrid is the author of nine novels, including The Vulnerables, What Are You Going Through, and The Friend, which was a New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2018 National Book Award, and made into a 2025 feature film of the same name starring Bill Murray and Naomi Watts.
Ben Shattuck
Ben's most recent book, The History of Sound was the recipient of the 2025 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the Story Prize Spotlight Award, and was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. His film adaptation of the title story premiered at the 2025 Cannes film festival and starred Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor. His first book, Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau, was a New Yorker Best Book of 2022, a New York Times Best Book of Summer, a New England Bestseller, and was nominated for the Massachusetts Book Award.
Nadia Conners (moderator)
Nadia is a writer and director whose most recent film, The Uninvited, is a Hollywood satire starring Walton Goggins, Pedro Pascal, Elizabeth Reaser, Rufus Sewell, and Lois Smith. The film premiered at SXSW and is now being adapted for the stage in the U.K. She previously co-directed and co-wrote the acclaimed environmental documentary The 11th Hour with Leila Conners and Leonardo DiCaprio. (Photo credit: Kate Warren)