An Evening with Seth Wickersham: Be On That Hill

• Each ticket will include either a paperback copy of Be on That Hill: Stories From the Summit of Sports or a $10 Gift Card to River Bend Bookshop.
• Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
• An audience Q&A and signing will follow the talk.

Seth Wickersham is among the greatest sportswriters of his generation and one of the most accomplished journalists working today. Throughout his career, he has taken readers not only inside the psyches of the biggest-name athletes but also into the most secretive boardrooms where executives and team owners shape the games that fans love. A natural storyteller and fan of sport, Wickersham travels across the globe to find masterful new ways of seeing what’s on our TV screens and getting inside the minds of those we idolize, revile, but most of all, can’t look away from.
Every day in America, men and women take to fields of competition ready to risk everything for a chance to make their dreams come true. They will suffer physically, emotionally, mentally—all for that moment when they might overcome the odds and become legendary.
Featuring stories from within the NFL about Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Sean McVay, Deion Sanders, the league itself, and many, many more.
Also includes unexpected stories about Kobe Bryant, Alex Honnold, the creation of “We Will Rock You,” globalization vs. local fandom, improvisation vs. planning, the role of violence in games, the toxic relationship between a NASCAR racer and his girlfriend (who claimed to be a government assassin), and whether climbing that hill of achievement day after day gives athletes what they really want.
A perfect companion to his American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback and It’s Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness, the stories of Be on That Hill are Seth Wickersham’s best: probing profiles, epic investigations, and personal columns.

Seth Wickersham is a senior writer at ESPN and a two-time New York Times bestselling author. Focusing primarily on long-form enterprise and investigative work on the National Football League, Wickersham has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Reporting, and his stories have been anthologized in The Best American Magazine Writing, The Best American Sports Writing, and Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists, among others. His first book, It’s Better to Be Feared was named Nonfiction Book of the Year by Sports Illustrated and Best Sports Book by the National Sports Media Association. His second, American Kings, was named a Best Book of 2025 by the Boston Globe and NPR. He lives in Connecticut with his family.

Alison Overholt is is an award-winning media executive, producer and editor. Alison was the first woman to run a major U.S. sports magazine when she became editor in chief of ESPN The Magazine and led the brand to a National Magazine Award for General Excellence. As a senior vice president at ESPN, she went on to lead the company’s Storytelling & Journalism division, a multiplatform portfolio including E60, Outside The Lines, ESPN Cover Story, espnW, The ESPN Daily podcast, The ESPYS, 30 for 30 Podcasts, ESPN’s Investigative Unit, ESPN The Magazine and all of ESPN’s global digital longform journalism.

Event venue & nearby stays

River Bend Bookshop - WH, 224 Park Road, West Hartford, United States

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