Marilynne Robinson is the recipient of a 2012 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama, for "her grace and intelligence in writing." She is the author of Gilead, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Home, winner of the Orange Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her first novel, Housekeeping, won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. In 2021, all four Gilead novels were selected for Oprah’s Book Club. Robinson's nonfiction books include Reading Genesis, What Are We Doing Here?;The Givenness of Things, When I Was a Child I Read Books, Absence of Mind, The Death of Adam, and Mother Country.

Robinson's books will be available for sale after the talk and she will be doing a book signing.  There will be a reception with food and beverages after the talk in the Garage and Small Family Collaboration Hub in Lake Hall.