Feb 22, 2016 2 min read

WAYNESBURG – A Washington County native and the best-selling author of “Concussion,” the book that inspired the movie starring Will Smith, will speak next week as part of Waynesburg University’s Rosetta Kormuth DeVito Lecture Series.

Jeanne Marie Laskas of Scenery Hill will be the guest lecturer at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Alumni Hall. She will discuss her book that follows the story of Dr. Bennett Omalu, who made a startling discovery about the damage done to the brains of NFL football players after game-related injuries.

Laskas will discuss Omalu’s journey from publishing a research article to being featured in GQ magazine through Laskas’ own writing, to being the subject of the best-selling book and a movie. Laskas spoke earlier this month in Peters Township to discuss the book.

Laskas also has authored several other books, including “Hidden America” and the award-winning trilogy of memoirs: “Fifty Acres and Poodle,” “The Exact Same Moon” and “Growing Girls.”

Most of her long-form journalism now appears in GQ, where she is a correspondent writing about a wide variety of subjects. She has been writing for national magazines for 20 years, with work appearing in The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine and many others.

She has won more than a dozen Golden Quill awards for Excellence in Journalism and was a finalist in feature writing at the 2007 National Magazine Awards. Laskas serves as director of the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches creative writing.

The Rosetta Kormuth DeVito series was created to explore topics related to business, culture and the arts. The lecture series addresses a variety of current topics that are of interest to graduate and undergraduate students and the community.

Admission to the lecture is free.