Signet Society Events
The Finley Armchair Talks
These informal evenings are named for the late professor, Eliot House master, and Signet Medal recipient John H. Finley, Jr. ’25 (1904-1995), to carry forward his tradition of similar such events. (If you’re interested, more on Finley here and here.)
These evenings are meant to foster connections between members and those working in the fields of arts and letters (as well as those who simply like wine, cheese, and books).
Guests of members are welcome, but we ask that all who wish to attend please RSVP to events [at] signetsociety.org.
Jorge Colombo
Tue. 29 Sep. 2026
6-9pm
Jorge Colombo has worked as an illustrator, as a photographer, and as graphic designer for over 40 years. He’s best known for the digital images he has been creating since 2009 (initially finger-painting on an iPhone; currently using an Apple Pencil and the Procreate app on an iPad Pro). Four 20x200.com print editions released in April 2009 led to his first cover for The New Yorker, the first magazine cover ever created on a smartphone. His images continue appearing in The New Yorker and other publications. A collection of one hundred NYC views, New York: Finger Paintings by Jorge Colombo, was published in 2011 by Chronicle Books, in collaboration with 20x200.
Elf Lyons
Tue. 6 Oct. 2026
6-9pm
Elf Lyons is an award-winning performer — working in the realms of comedy, clowning, bouffon, stand-up, verbatim theatre and live art. With over ten years of experience as a professional comic, Elf tours internationally with her solo shows and directing and teaching artists of all creative disciplines. She loves making work that stretches the relationship between comedy, theatre and performance art. She has been lucky to work on creative projects with establishments including the Barbican, the British Library, the London Science Museum, the Royal Society of Literature and the City of London. She is the most programmed artist at the Soho Theatre, London and as of August 2026, the most well reviewed artist at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
elflyons.com
Lia Strasser
Wed., 14 Oct. 2026
6-9pm
Lia Strasser is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, painter, and cartoonist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker magazine. With a decade of experience as an art director in media and entertainment, she now works independently across editorial illustration, art direction and education.
liastrasser.com
Aemilia Phillips (’16)
Wed., 21 Oct. 2026
6-9pm
Aemilia Phillips is a literary agent representing a range of writers, including a National Book Award nominee, PEN America finalist, Pulitzer winning journalist, and more. A dual Mexican-American citizen with interests in narrative non-fiction, hybrid memoir, commercial fiction, and select poetry and self-help, she looks for diverse writing with an impactful story. She loves narrative-driven projects that appear to be commercial, but that are also smart cultural critiques, and stories with just a touch of magic. Aemila began her publishing career at Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, which merged with DeFiore & Co. a decade later in 2026. She graduated from Harvard University, and completed the Columbia University Publishing Course. She lives in Manhattan, and is an avid New York sports fan.
defliterary.com/agents/aemilia-phillips
Joanna Weiss (’94)
Wed., 28 Oct. 2026
6-9pm
Joanna Weiss became editor of Harvard Magazine in April 2025. A 1994 graduate of Harvard College, where she served as the editorial chair of The Harvard Crimson, Joanna began her journalism career at The Times-Picayune of New Orleans and spent 16 years as a metro and political reporter, arts reporter, and op-ed columnist at The Boston Globe. She has created and run award-winning magazines for Northeastern University and the technology firm athenahealth. Joanna’s writing has appeared in Politico, Slate, The Atlantic, The Economist, Boston Magazine, and other publications, along with the books Nasty Women and Bad Hombres: Gender and Race in the 2016 Presidential Race (University of Rochester Press) and the upcoming Taylor Swift: Album by Album (Quarto Press). Her Boston Magazine article “For Those Moms About to Rock” has been optioned for film by 20th Century Studios.
www.joannaweiss.com
Alice Sedgwick Wohl (’53)
Wed., 4 Nov. 2026
6-9pm
Alice was Radcliffe Class of 1953, where she studied art history and Italian literature. She worked for 25 years an an editor at the International Repertoire of the Literature of Art, which the Getty Trust took over in 1980, digitized, and renamed the Bibliography of the History of Art. After the Getty moved the office to Los Angeles, she became an independent scholar and translator of 16th and 17th century literature on art. Her translations include Ascanio Condivi’s Life of Michelangelo; Giovan Pietro Bellori’s Lives of the Modern Painters. Sculptors, and Architects; and Francisco de Hollanda’s On Antique Painting and Dialogues in Rome. She then wrote As It Turns Out, a book about Warhol and her sister Edie. She is currently working on a book about the relationship between Velázquez and Philip IV of Spain.
She will be speaking in part on the story of how Beat poet Gregory Corso lived for a time as a stowaway in a tent in the Eliot House suite of her brother Bobby, and how his time at Harvard shaped his trajectory.
Aug Stone
Wed., 14 Nov. 2026
6-9pm
Aug Stone is a writer and musician. His novel The Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass was one of Vulture’s Best Comedy Books Of 2023. His other books are Off-License To Kill, Nick Cave's Bar, Sporting Moustaches, and Family Vacations. He was a founding member of the bands H Bird and The Soft Close-Ups. Aug's a Sagittarius Rising at 12 degrees, with Neptune sitting at 13 degrees Sag. That explains a lot.
augstone.com
Past Events
Emeline Atwood (’18)
Weds., 21 Sep. 2026
6-9pm
An evening in celebration of A Real Animal by Emeline Atwood ’18, a Signet alumna. The novel received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Shelf Awareness; was selected as an American Booksellers Association Indie Next pick and 2026 Indies Introduce title; and has been longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2026 First Novel Prize. The book has been recommended by Vogue, People, Time, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, and the Chicago Review of Books, among others. Atwood was named one of CULTURED Magazine’s 2026 Young Writers and one of Publishers Weekly’s 2026 Writers to Watch.
emelineatwood.com