Marge Piercy, acclaimed novelist, poet and activist, will be the featured speaker at the Second Annual Lazaroff Lecture on Thursday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the Saul Brodsky Jewish Community Library. The library is located in the Jewish Federation Kopolow Building, 12 Millstone Campus Drive. She will be speaking at the library on her latest book, Sex Wars: A Novel of Gilded Age New York, an historical novel of gender, power, and the American Dream in the 19th century told through the viewpoints of some of the most passionate characters in American history, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and a spirited young Jewish immigrant named Freydah.

Piercy, a popular speaker on the college campus and lecture circuit and writer for radio and television, has just penned her seventeenth novel, and has published numerous volumes of poetry as well as a memoir. She has been a key player in many of the major political issues of our time, which makes her even more relevant today than she was when she was speaking out against the Vietnam War and for the Women’s Movement. Piercy has most recently been an active participant in the resistance to the war in Iraq.

Piercy grew up during the Depression in Detroit as the great-granddaughter of a Lithuanian shtetl rabbi, and retains close ties to the Jewish community, often teaching writing seminars at Jewish retreats.

Following the lecture, there will be a reception and book signing. Reservations are required by March 5, and the cost is $7 per person, and is free to Friends of the Library. Call 314-442-3720 or email [email protected]. The Brodsky Library is a beneficiary agency of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis. The event is sponsored by the Morris and Ann Lazaroff Endowment for the Saul Brodsky Jewish Community Library.

For more information on Marge Piercy, go to http://www.margepiercy.com/.