Playwright Sarah Ruhl is celebrating the release of her new book, Letters From Max, with two events in New York City this month. The book is co-authored with Max Ritvo, a poet and former playwriting student of Ruhl's who passed away in 2016.

Letters From Max, which will be available September 18, is described as part reminiscence, part poetry, and part correspondence (between Ritvo and Ruhl). The book is a moving portrait of a friendship and an exploration of love, art, mortality, and the afterlife.

"In a way, it’s an overheard conversation I had with Max for about four years as Max grappled with cancer, wrote ferociously, made jokes, contemplated the afterlife, wrote two astounding books of poetry, gave of himself profoundly to the people around him, and ultimately succumbed to Ewing’s Sarcoma two years ago," explains Ruhl.

Ruhl will head to the Books are Magic Bookstore on September 17, where she will be joined in conversation with poet Timothy Donnelly at 8:30 PM; and The Strand's Book Room on September 20 to share her story and details of the book with Mary-Louise Parker (7–8 PM).

Ruhl is the playwright of In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play (Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tony Award nominee); The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); Passion Play, a cycle; Dead Man’s Cell Phone (winner of the Helen Hayes Award); and, most recently, For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, Stage Kiss, and Dear Elizabeth.