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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260919T143000
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SUMMARY:WDA Heather Cox Richardson Watch Party Brings a National Democracy Event to Bank Square Books
DESCRIPTION:WDA Heather Cox Richardson Watch Party brings a nationwide Writers for Democratic Action event to Bank Square Books in Mystic on Saturday\, September 19\, as historian and bestselling author Heather Cox Richardson receives the inaugural Gitlin-Auster Defender of Democracy Award. \nThe local gathering begins at 2:30 p.m. with refreshments\, conversation and an opportunity to submit questions before the national livestream starts at 3 p.m. \nRichardson will receive the new award before sitting down for a conversation with novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt\, a founding member of Writers for Democratic Action and author of the 2026 memoir Ghost Stories. \nBank Square Books is one of a network of locations around the country holding what WDA calls Solidarity Watch Parties. The Mystic event adds a decidedly local component: a representative from the League of Women Voters of Southeastern Connecticut will be available to register voters and answer questions about voting in Connecticut’s upcoming elections. \nAdmission is free\, but Bank Square Books is requesting advance registration. \nA Watch Party Connected to a National Event\nThis isn’t a prerecorded author talk being shown at the bookstore. \nWriters for Democratic Action is bringing together hundreds of its members online while people gather simultaneously at bookstores\, libraries\, homes\, retirement communities and other locations around the country. \nAt 3 p.m. Eastern\, those separate gatherings will join the same livestream honoring Richardson. \nThe national organization says the watch parties have a second purpose beyond recognizing her work. They also mark the launch of WDA’s Book the Vote campaign ahead of the November election. \nWriters for Democratic Action describes itself as a national community of more than 4\,000 writers committed to defending democracy\, freedom of expression\, truth and justice. \nIts membership includes novelists\, poets\, journalists\, essayists and other writers who have chosen to become actively involved in civic issues rather than keeping their political concerns separate from their literary work. \nSaturday’s event puts one of the country’s most widely read historians at the center of that effort. \nHeather Cox Richardson Has Turned the Daily News Into a History Lesson\nRichardson is a professor of history at Boston College\, but the audience for her work now extends far beyond a university classroom. \nShe’s a specialist in 19th-century American political and economic history whose academic work has examined the Civil War\, Reconstruction\, the Gilded Age\, the American West and the development of the Republican Party. \nHer books include The Death of Reconstruction\, West from Appomattox\, Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre\, To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party\, How the South Won the Civil War and Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. \nBut millions of readers know her primarily through Letters from an American. \nRichardson began what became the newsletter in 2019 as she tried to explain rapidly developing political events by putting them into a larger historical context. \nRather than treating each day’s political news as an isolated story\, she connects contemporary developments to earlier periods in American history. \nA dispute over the power of the presidency might lead backward to Reconstruction. \nA modern argument over voting rights can become a discussion of the post-Civil War amendments. \nPolitical rhetoric can be traced across generations to show where ideas came from and how their meanings changed. \nThe approach turned an academic historian into a major national voice. \nBy 2026\, Letters from an American had grown into an audience measured in the millions across Substack and social media. \nRichardson’s Subject Is Increasingly Democracy Itself\nRichardson’s academic specialty might be 19th-century America\, but a common thread running through much of her recent public work is a much larger question: \nHow does a democracy survive? \nHer 2023 bestseller Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America examines the historical forces Richardson argues brought the United States to its current political moment. \nThe book moves between the country’s founding\, abolition\, Reconstruction\, the rise of modern political movements\, the Nixon era and the events surrounding January 6\, 2021. \nRichardson’s central method is historical rather than predictive. \nToday’s conflicts become easier to understand\, she argues\, when they’re placed beside earlier struggles over political power\, economic opportunity\, citizenship and who gets to participate in American government. \nThat combination of scholarship and public engagement has brought Richardson recognition beyond the academy. \nShe was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022 and has received the Authors Guild Award for literary activism. \nOn September 19\, another award will be added to that list. \nThe First Gitlin-Auster Defender of Democracy Award\nWriters for Democratic Action will present Richardson with its inaugural Gitlin-Auster Defender of Democracy Award during Saturday’s livestream. \nThe names behind the award are significant. \nTodd Gitlin was a writer\, sociologist\, political activist and longtime commentator on American politics and culture. As a young man\, he served as president of Students for a Democratic Society and later became a prominent scholar and critic. \nPaul Auster was the acclaimed novelist\, essayist\, poet\, screenwriter and filmmaker whose books included The New York Trilogy\, Moon Palace\, The Book of Illusions and 4 3 2 1. \nBoth were among the writers involved in creating Writers for Democratic Action. \nGitlin died in 2022. \nAuster died in 2024. \nNaming WDA’s new democracy award for them ties the organization’s present work to two writers who believed that literary and intellectual life could not always remain separate from public life. \nRichardson becomes its first recipient Saturday. \nSiri Hustvedt Joins Richardson for the Conversation\nFollowing the award presentation\, Richardson will be joined by Siri Hustvedt. \nHustvedt is a novelist\, essayist and scholar whose work has frequently crossed boundaries among fiction\, philosophy\, psychology\, neuroscience and art. \nHer books include What I Loved\, The Summer Without Men\, The Blazing World and numerous collections of essays. \nShe’s also a founding member of Writers for Democratic Action. \nThe connection to Saturday’s award is particularly personal. \nHustvedt and Paul Auster were married for 43 years\, until Auster’s death from lung cancer in April 2024. \nHer latest book\, Ghost Stories\, published in May 2026\, is a memoir of their life together and her experience of grief following his death. \nThe book incorporates previously unseen material from Auster\, including letters and unfinished writing\, while exploring memory\, love\, loss and what remains of a shared life after one person is gone. \nThat makes the pairing Saturday more than a conventional author interviewing another author. \nHustvedt is helping present an award that carries her late husband’s name\, then joining its first recipient for a public discussion about the ideas that led WDA to create it. \nMystic’s Watch Party Has Its Own Civic Component\nThe livestream is national. \nWhat happens around it at Bank Square Books is local. \nGuests can arrive at 2:30 p.m.\, giving them about half an hour to mingle\, have refreshments and submit questions before the livestream begins. \nA representative of the League of Women Voters of Southeastern Connecticut will also be at the bookstore. \nThe League representative can help eligible residents register to vote and answer practical questions about voting and Connecticut elections. \nThat gives people an immediate way to move from a national discussion of democracy to one of its most basic local functions. \nConnecticut’s next general election is Tuesday\, November 3\, 2026. \nFor someone uncertain about registration\, election procedures or where to find reliable nonpartisan voting information\, Saturday provides an opportunity to ask a person rather than sort through conflicting information online. \nBank Square Books Has Become a Gathering Place as Well as a Bookstore\nThe setting also fits the event. \nBank Square Books has served Mystic-area readers since 1988. \nIts current location at 80 Stonington Road\, Suite 8\, gives the independent bookstore enough room to regularly hold author talks\, signings\, book clubs and other community programs. \nThat role matters in an era when books can be purchased without ever entering a bookstore. \nAn independent bookstore can sell the same book that arrives in a cardboard box on someone’s doorstep. \nWhat it can do that the box can’t is put readers in the same room. \nSaturday’s watch party takes that idea a step further. \nThe featured historian won’t physically be in Mystic. Neither will Hustvedt. \nBut the audience will. \nRather than watching the livestream individually at home\, people can hear the same conversation together\, discuss it and connect it to the civic work happening where they actually live. \nThat’s the entire idea behind WDA’s Solidarity Watch Parties. \nYou Can Arrive at 2:30 or Join for the Livestream at 3\nBank Square Books is inviting guests to arrive at 2:30 p.m. for the social portion of the event. \nRefreshments will be available\, and attendees can submit questions. \nThe national program begins at 3 p.m. \nThere is a slight discrepancy in the published ending time. Bank Square Books’ current event calendar lists the event from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.\, while regional event calendars list the gathering through approximately 4 p.m. The national WDA schedule describes the livestream itself as running from 3 to 4 p.m. \nAnyone attending should therefore plan on the main livestream running until about 4 p.m.\, with the bookstore’s event window potentially continuing afterward. \nThe event is free. \nAdvance registration is requested. \nAn Author Event Where the Book Isn’t the End of the Conversation\nThere’s an interesting inversion at the heart of Saturday’s event. \nRichardson became famous in part by using history to explain politics. \nWriters for Democratic Action is using writers to encourage political participation. \nBank Square Books is using a bookstore as a place for civic gathering. \nAnd the League of Women Voters will be there to turn some of those conversations into the decidedly practical business of making sure people can vote. \nBooks are still at the center of it. \nSo are writers. \nBut the WDA Heather Cox Richardson Watch Party is built around the idea that reading about democracy and participating in one are related activities. \nOn Saturday afternoon\, those two things meet at a bookstore in Mystic. \nDetails\nEvent: WDA Heather Cox Richardson Watch Party\nDate: Saturday\, September 19\, 2026\nArrival/Mingling: 2:30 p.m.\nNational Livestream: 3 p.m.\nLivestream End: Approximately 4 p.m.\nBank Square Books Calendar Window: 2:30–4:30 p.m.\nLocation: Bank Square Books\nAddress: 80 Stonington Road\, Suite 8\, Mystic\, CT 06355\nAdmission: Free\nRegistration: Advance RSVP requested\nFeatured Guest: Heather Cox Richardson\, historian\, author and Boston College professor\nAward: Inaugural Gitlin-Auster Defender of Democracy Award\nConversation: Heather Cox Richardson and Siri Hustvedt\nPresented Nationally By: Writers for Democratic Action\nLocal Host: Bank Square Books\nLocal Civic Resource: League of Women Voters of Southeastern Connecticut representative available for voter registration and election questions\nBefore the Livestream: Mingling\, refreshments and question submission\nGeneral Election: Tuesday\, November 3\, 2026\nBank Square Books Phone: 860-536-3795 \nMore information is available at the Event Website link below. \nTo reserve your spot\, click the Event Registration link below. \n  \n  \nFeatured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people\, location\, or activities shown. \nResources\nWriters for Democratic Action\nHeather Cox Richardson – Boston College\nHeather Cox Richardson – American Academy of Arts and Sciences\nDemocracy Awakening – Penguin Random House\nGhost Stories – Siri Hustvedt\nConnecticut Voter Information
URL:https://thectbeacon.com/event/wda-heather-cox-richardson-watch-party-brings-a-national-democracy-event-to-bank-square-books/
LOCATION:Bank Square Books\, 80 Stonington Rd\, Mystic\, 06355\, United States
CATEGORIES:Bank Square Books
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://thectbeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/WDA-Heather-Cox-Richardson.jpg
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