Susan Lucci, Jodi Picoult coming to Adelphi writers festival

"Adelphi University kind of saved my life," explains bestselling author Alice Hoffman, who was on the verge of becoming a high school dropout when a caring guidance counselor helped her figure out how to graduate early and enroll in night classes at the Garden City-based school. Her determination to give back to the school and light the path for others became the inspiration for Adelphi’s Writers and Readers Festival, which she founded and has been a major presence at since its inception in 2024.

Running Wednesday through Friday, the festival opens its third year with more authors, richer programming and more ties than ever to the Long Island community. At the center of the action will be Hoffman and two other homegrown luminaries: "Alice is from Franklin Square, Jodi Picoult is from Nesconset, and Susan Lucci is from right here in Garden City," notes Tom Kline, Adelphi's vice president for university advancement and external relations.

Kline recalls having lunch with Hoffman in 2022, "as we were coming out of the pandemic. Lamenting a bit about the state of the literary world, she said, 'You know, Tom, I want to do something special for Long Island, and I want to do it at Adelphi.'"

This year, the keynote event is a conversation between good friends Hoffman and Picoult at 11 a.m. April 16. Tickets to this event include a copy of Picoult's 28th and most recent book, "By Any Other Name," a novel based on the idea that a Jewish woman wrote some of the plays attributed to Shakespeare.

At 3 p.m. April 16, Hoffman will present her new, bestselling essay anthology, "The Best Dog in the Word" with contributors Laura Zigman and Ann Leary. She'll discuss the editor-author relationship on a panel with her longtime editor at Scribner, Marysue Rucci on April 17 at 9:30 a.m. "So many people in the festival audience are fanatical readers and aspiring writers," she says. "This will give them a window into the process."

Susan Lucci's role

Television icon Lucci, who played Erica Kane on ABC's daytime soap "All My Children" for 41 years, will address her hometown crowd at the festival's opening event at 7 p.m. April 15. She’ll discuss her second memoir, "La Lucci," with podcaster, novelist and festival regular Adriana Trigiani. Adelphi's Performing Arts Center stage is a perfect and poignant location for this appearance, says Lucci, who appeared there in Eugene Pack's show "Celebrity Autobiography," in which celebrities, tongues firmly planted in cheeks, read from celebs' memoirs.

Since penning her first book, "All My Life" (2011), the star faced profound personal challenges, none greater than the loss of her beloved husband, Helmut Huber, in 2022. "After his death," Lucci said, "I really was lost. I didn't think I would ever step in front of a camera or on stage again, and I canceled several commitments, which is very unlike me.

"But then came the date for a performance of 'Celebrity Autobiography' right here at Adelphi, a fun show I'd appeared in before, playing Ivana Trump and Elizabeth Taylor. I thought, ah, maybe this would be good for me. I thought, do this one. Try it. It was my first performance since my husband's death, and oh my God, it was a turning point for me. The warmth of the local crowd inspired me to return to my life."

And, she adds, it led her to begin work on "La Lucci," a memoir about coming back after life's blows.

Like the book itself, the performance will include lighter moments and local color, such an anecdote involving Lucci's favorite sandwich from a Garden City deli, a panini she jokes should be called "All My Chicken."

The grand finale

The final event of the festival on Friday at 4:30 will be a reading and award ceremony for the new-this-year high school poetry contest, which was the brainchild of Louise Geddes, associate dean for student success at Adelphi as well as an English professor. The contest drew 180 entries from high schoolers from Long Island and around the world. "So many teenagers write poetry," Geddes says, "and there aren't many venues for it. This is a great way to get young people involved in the festival." And she adds, any high school groups or individual students who attend get a free lunch.

Adelphi alum Danielle Gaudio Lalehzar has been a festival regular from the beginning, and has brought friends each year. "Everybody I've brought is coming again this year, and they're bringing new people," she says. While she loves that the festival "makes you interested in books you'd never think about buying," she's already purchased and read "La Lucci."

"Its message for people who are grieving — you don't have to 'move on,' just 'move forward' — is so inspiring," she says. 

Lalehzar also treasures her collection of selfies with Hoffman, Trigiani, and other authors and will surely add to it at the festival.