On Tuesday, April 19, Governor’s welcomed author Paul Watkins to campus as our guest for this year’s Common Book Day. Watkins spent the day with our community discussing his memoir, Stand Before Your God: An American Schoolboy in England. His memoir recounts his time at Dragon School and Eton in England.
Watkins is currently a teacher and writer-in residence at The Peddie School in New Jersey. He formerly taught at the Lawrenceville School. He attended the Dragon School in Oxford, and later attended Eton, then graduated from Yale University. He was a University Fellow at Syracuse University. Watkins also has a series of novels set in Stalinist Russia, which is a detective series.
Watkins spent the morning holding two workshops with students and faculty members. He then addressed the entire community of students, faculty, and staff in an all school convocation, reading a humorous excerpt from his memoir, which had students laughing. Afterwards, he held a book signing over lunch in the Pescosolido Library, where students and faculty asked him questions and could speak with him in a smaller setting.
Joining Mr. Watkins at Govs was his wife Catherine Robohm Watkins, an artist whose artwork has been on display in the Remis Lobby for several weeks.
The series of paintings entitled, Fever Dream were inspired by two weeks she spent in India in 2012 and 2015. Mrs. Watkins spoke to classes gathered in the Remis Lobby about her colorful series of work, answering questions from students and talking about her process as an artist. Mrs. Watkins also teaches at The Peddie School.
Thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Watkins for a wonderful day and for visiting us at the Academy.
To view pictures of the day, click here.