is Chatham’s 2011 Melanie Brown Lecturer.  I’m reading Birds in Fall right now, and it’s fantastic.  His bio, according to his website:

Brad Kessler’s novel Birds in Fall won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His other books include Lick Creek and The Woodcutter’s Christmas. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, The Kenyon Review, and BOMB, as well as other publications. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He is reading at Chatham on Wed. March 16.  Details can be found here.

More info about the author can be found at his website.