Author/Radio-TV commentator Lisa Miller will be guest speaker at the 2013 Daryl D. Schmidt Lecture on Religion in Public Life at 7 p.m. tonight, Monday, Oct. 7 in the BLUU ballroom. Her topic is “Religion and the Popular Press: Does the Story Always Have To Be Bad?”

The event is free but seat reservations are required. Go to www.froglinks.com/schmidtlectureseries or phone ext. 5031 for information.

Miller is a contributing editor at New York magazine and an award-winning journalist in the field of religion. She was, until 2011, the religion editor at Newsweek magazine where, during the 2008 presidential campaign, she interviewed both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney about their religious faith.

Her cover story "Our Mutual Joy: The Religious Case for Gay Marriage" won the prestigious Wilbur Award for feature writing. Her columns on religion and politics for The Washington Post received national attention and helped frame the values debate during the 2012 presidential campaign. She is the author of Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife (HarperCollins, 2010). She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.