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An ArtZine exclusive! Listen to nationally and internationally known writers read and discuss their work during their visits to the Thurber House.
SUE MILLER
September, 2009
Beloved New York Times bestselling author, Sue Miller, returns (after being cancelled due to weather) to Thurber House this anniversary year, and reads from her latest novel, "The Senator's Wife," a mesmerizing portrait of two imperfect marriages and two women who unexpectedly change each other’s lives. As in all of her books, she brings us an utterly engrossing story and characters who resonate with readers of all ages. She is the author of ten books including the iconic "The Good Mother," "Inventing the Abbotts," and the Oprah Book Club pick, the bestselling "While I Was Gone." She lives in Boston.
Author of several novels, including the acclaimed semi-autobiography, "A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries," Kaylie Jones will read from her newest book, "Lies My Mother Never Told Me." It is a gripping memoir about growing up as the daughter of literary royalty, James Jones, acclaimed author of such classic bestsellers as "From Here to Eternity" and "The Thin Red Line." The memoir reveals the painful truth not only of growing up with such literary luminaries as Norman Mailer and Thornton Wilder as family friends, but of a mother-daughter relationship torn apart because of alcoholism. Jones and her family live in New York City.
Join us for two readings as we celebrate the work of two of Columbus’s most talented writers and longtime Thurber House friends, Erin McGraw and Pulitzer Prize finalist Andrew Hudgins. Both are professors at The Ohio State University. Erin reads from her latest novel, "The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard," and Andrew reads from two books of poetry, "Shut Up Your’re Fine: Instructive Poetry for Very, Very Bad Children," and "American Rendering: New and Selected Poems" (to be published in 2010).
Ohio native Paul L. Gaus is a recently retired professor of Chemistry at The College of Wooster and is co-author of the best-selling senior textbook, Basic Inorganic Chemistry. Paul took an interest in writing fiction, and began to write mystery novels set in Holmes County, Ohio, spawning the popular Ohio Amish Mystery series. The sixth and latest book in the series, Separate from the World, explores the rift between two Amish factions in the wake of a murder and suicide, one that favors the use of medicine and college study, and the other that rejects any outside influence. He lectures widely about Amish culture and lives in Wooster, OH.
Christopher Barzak is a teacher of creative writing at Youngstown State University. He is the author of two novels including, One for Sorrow, and will read from his latest work, The Love We Share Without Knowing, a haunting, richly woven novel that explores the ties that bind humanity across the deepest divides in modern day Japan. His stories have appeared in a many venues, including Nerve.com, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Strange Horizons, Salon Fantastique, among many others.
David Giffels is a columnist for the Akron Beacon Journal and contributing commentator and essayist on NPR. He has won dozens of journalism awards, including the 2006 National Award for Commentary, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize five times. He will read from his book All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-down House, a memoir about coming of age as a father in a ramshackle mansion reclaimed from termites, belligerent squirrels, and decades of neglect. In addition to his essays appearing in numerous publications including the New York Times and Redbook.
Ohio native James J. Siegel is the poetry facilitator for a group called GuyWriters, which offers monthly critique sessions and quarterly open mic readings. He attended Bowling Green State University where he studied journalism and creative writing. The inspiration for much of his current work is based on Ohio and small town life in the Midwest. His poetry has appeared in literary journals such as The Fourth River, Toledo Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Blueline and the online at magazine Paper Street. He lives in San Francisco.
Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author of twenty-one novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, novellas, and short stories, and the editor of three essay anthologies. She reads from her latest novel, Always Kiss Me Goodnight, her own version of The Turn of the Screw. Trouble ensues when at the behest of her ex-husband, Emmeline takes a job caring for two orphans in the middle of nowhere (also known as Southern Ohio), and ends up with a houseful of delinquents, ex-in-laws, and ghosts. Plus a haunted couch! Crusie lives near the Ohio River where she often stares at the ceiling and counts her blessings.
For this year’s Thurber Treat writing contest, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Thurber House, local authors both young and old, were asked to tell us about an unforgettable experience or memory they have had over the past quarter century, perhaps as a camper, an academy participant, or someone who has enjoyed visiting the house and attending our events. Local celebrity and FOX 28 Good Day Columbus reporter Johnny DiLoretto (pictured on left) served as host for the evening. The top three contest winners of the Thurber Treat read their entries.
Julia Keller is cultural critic at the Chicago Tribune and winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Her debut book, Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel, offers a riveting account of the Gatling gun’s invention, its misunderstood creator, and its tremendous impact on America and the world. Keller was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, has taught at both Princeton and The Ohio State University, and is a guest essayist on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. She lives in Chicago.
Celia Rivenbark is an award-winning newspaper columnist and freelance journalist. She has won national and state press awards and is the author of four humor collections including the Thurber Humor Prize semi-finalist,We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier, and Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank. She will read from her latest, Belle Weather: Mostly Sunny With a Chance of Scattered Hissy Fits. In this newest collection of laugh-out-loud essays, you’ll experience: The Joys of Remodeling Tara, Why French Women Suck at Competitive Eating, Britney’s To-Do List, and many, many more. She lives in North Carolina.
Heather Byer is a freelance writer and editor in New York City, as well as a copyeditor at a management consulting firm. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other publications. Sweet: An Eight-Ball Odyssey is her first book, which recounts her first fumbling attempts to learn a game that beckoned to her for years. She describes the hypnotic pull that surrounds the sport of pool: the netherworld of pool halls; the troubled players who lose themselves in the game; and the constant quest for the win. Byer was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio before moving to New York City in 1999. This reading is from the Thurber House from July 23rd, 2008.
Sena Jeter Naslund is Writer in Residence at the University of Louisville, program director of the Spalding University brief-residency MFA in Writing, and current Kentucky Poet Laureate. Recipient of the Harper Lee Award and the Southeastern Library Association Fiction Award, she is editor of The Louisville Review and the Fleur-de-Lis Press. She is the author of the novels Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, and Sherlock in Love and a collection of stories, The Disobedience of Water. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Clip #1: she talks about Four Spirits, with Brent Davis from WOSU at the Thurber House. Clip #2: she reads from this same book.
Ann-Marie MacDonald is a Toronto-based writer and actor. Her play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) won the Governor General's Award for Drama, the Chalmers Award for Outstanding Play and the Canadian Authors' Association Award for Drama. She won a Gemini Award for her role in the film Where the Spirit Lives and was nominated for a Genie for her role in I've Heard the Mermaids Singing. Fall On Your Knees was published in the New Face of Fiction program in 1996. Clip #1: She talks about The Way the Crow Flies at the Thurber House. Clip #2: she reads from this same book.
Lee Martin is a professor and Director of Creative Writing at The Ohio State University. He is the author of several books including the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, The Bright Forever. He will read from his latest novel, River of Heaven, a striking story about the high cost of living a lie, the chains that bind us to our past, and the obligations we have to those we love. He has won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, a Lawrence Foundation Award, and the Glenna Luschei Prize.
Alan Lightman is a distinguished physicist and an accomplished novelist. He was the first professor at MIT to receive a joint appointment in the sciences and the humanities. His novel Einstein's Dreams was an international bestseller and has been translated into thirty languages. It was runner-up for the 1994 PEN New England/Boston Globe Winship Award. Einstein's Dreams was also the March 1998 selection for National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" Book Club.
Lightman talks about his career and his novel Reunion in this interview recorded in Summer, 2005 with WOSU’s Brent Davis at The Thurber House.
Dayton, Ohio native Katrina Kittle reads from her latest novel, The Kindness of Strangers, which creates a haunting vision of the secret lives of people we think we know. It is a powerful and poignant tale of how the tragedy of a single family in a small suburban town can affect so many. She is also the author of Traveling Light and Two Truths and a Lie. The Kindness of Strangers was the Fiction Book winner for the 2006 Great Lakes Book Awards. Katrina teaches 6th and 7th grade English at Miami Valley School in Dayton, and also acts frequently in productions for the Dayton Theatre Guild.
Brock Clarke read from his latest novel, An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, the delightfully dark story of “accidental arsonist and murderer” Sam Pulsifier, who leads readers through a flame-filled adventure starting when he accidentally burned down the historic home of Emily Dickinson. Clarke is the author of The Ordinary White Boy, What We Won’t Do, and Carrying the Torch. He has twice been a finalist for a National Magazine Award in Fiction. His work has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Georgia Review, Pushcart Prize, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts, among others. He teaches creative writing at the University of Cincinnati.
Listen each week as WOSU film critics Joyce and Rico Long review the latest movies. They praise or pan the latest Hollywood blockbusters as well as lesser-known independent films showing in central Ohio. more...
Join host Boyce Lancaster in a new hot spot where you can sample some the richest fare—the Amadeus Deli! Weekdays from noon to 1pmon WOSU 89.7, let Mozart and his contemporaries set the perfect soundtrack to your lunch hour. more...
