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Retirement? A Memoir of Reinvention and Adventure: An Interview with Dian Seidel
***PLEASE NOTE: the library will be open only for the Literary Festival events. Regular library services will remain unavailable.
Either by design or by default, retirement is the time for reinventing herself. Teaching kindergarten in Thailand wasn’t the job Dian Seidel had in mind when, at age 60 and craving adventure, she convinced her husband that they should try teaching English abroad. But coping with rambunctious children, sweltering heat and Covid-19 turned out to be the challenge she needed to reshape her outlook.
Upon returning from Thailand to pandemic breakdown, Seidel reinvented herself again, taking on the challenges of writing and telling her most interesting story. Part travel memoir and part second act story, “Kindergarten at 60: A Memoir of Teaching in Thailand” is a retirement tale like none other. Join the journey, meet the kids and experience “Kindergarten at 60.” Interviewed by poet and Professor Emerita Claire Keyes, Seidel will share this tour of Thailand, teaching, retirement and reinvention!
Dian Seidel grew up in Marblehead (MHS Class of 1977) and now lives in the Washington, D.C. area. As a climate scientist at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), her research contributed to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Now in retirement, she teaches English to adult immigrants, teaches yoga, and writes. Her essays have appeared in Passager, Anak Sastra, Lucky Jefferson, Pen in Hand, The New York Times, and Bethesda Magazine. Seidel invites you to visit her at dianseidel.com.
Claire Keyes is Professor Emerita at Salem State University, where she taught English for 30 years. Her poems, essays and reviews have appeared in such journals as Valparaiso Review, Calyx, Blueline, and The Women’s Review of Books. She is the author of two collections of poetry: “The Question of Rapture” (Mayapple Press) and “What Diamonds Can Do” (WordTech). Her chapbook, “Rising and Falling,” won the Foothills Poetry Competition. A second chapbook, “One Port,” was recently published by Derby Wharf Books. She lives in Marblehead, where she conducts a monthly poetry salon at Abbot Public Library.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2503099-0
