As part of the University of Rhode Island’s 2026 Honors Colloquium, “Interstellar Exploration: Journey Beyond Your Limits,” and the Gender and Sexuality Center’s Coming Out Week, the Honors Colloquium, Gender and Sexuality Center, Office of Community, Equity and Diversity, and ATL are joining together to welcome bestselling author Taylor Jenkins Reid for a special virtual conversation about her novel Atmosphere.
The event brings together two major University-wide initiatives around a shared question: What does it mean to explore beyond the limits we have been given? The Honors Colloquium invites the URI community to consider exploration through the lens of space, science, discovery, and the human drive to go beyond what is known. Coming Out Week, observed in recognition of National Coming Out Day on October 11, expands that conversation to consider the deeply personal dimensions of exploration—identity, authenticity, relationships, representation, and belonging.
Atmosphere provides a unique literary thread connecting these conversations. Set within the world of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, the novel explores ambition, scientific discovery, relationships, love, identity, and the pursuit of belonging within spaces that have not always been equally accessible or representative. These themes create an opportunity for the URI community to engage with the Honors Colloquium’s exploration of space while also considering the personal and human dimensions of who gets to explore, achieve, belong, and see themselves represented in these stories.
Through the Community Read, Atmosphere is bringing together students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members across disciplines and campus communities. Taylor Jenkins Reid’s conversation will provide an opportunity for readers to hear directly from the author about the novel, its characters, its historical setting, and the questions it raises about exploration, ambition, identity, representation, and human connection.
The collaboration reflects the broader spirit of the Honors Colloquium: using the exploration of space as a starting point for asking larger questions about ourselves, our communities, and the possibilities that emerge when we look beyond familiar boundaries. Bringing the Honors Colloquium and Coming Out Week together through Atmosphere creates a shared experience that we hope will resonate across the URI community and with alumni far beyond a single academic discipline or campus program.
Taylor Jenkins Reid is a New York Times-bestselling author, screenwriter, and Emmy nominated producer. Her most recent novel ATMOSPHERE debuted at #1 on the New York Times best-sellers list. Her additional bestsellers include CARRIE SOTO IS BACK and THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO. She is currently hard at work on her next novel.
credit: Michael Buckner