Happy New Year and welcome back to all of our students and readers! Today, January 7th, is the first day of classes for Winter Quarter 2013.
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This quarter, the DePaul Humanities Center has wasted no time in kicking off their newest series of on-campus events and readings with an upcoming evening with bestselling author George Saunders.
All are invited to attend this Wednesday, January 9th, 2013 from 6:00-7:30 p.m. in room 120 of the DePaul Student Center, 2250 N Sheffield Avenue, as Saunders reads from his newest collection of short stories, Tenth of December. A reception will precede at 5:30 p.m.
George Saunders is the author of four collections of short stories: the bestselling Pastoralia; CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, a Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; In Persuasion Nation, one of three finalists for the 2006 STORY Prize; and the forthcoming Tenth of December. Saunders is also the author of the novella-length illustrated fable, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, and the New York Times bestselling children’s book, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip. In 2006, Saunders was awarded both a MacArthur Fellowship, for “bring[ing] to contemporary American fiction a sense of humor, pathos, and a literary style all his own,” and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University.
George Saunders’ book of essays, The Braindead Megaphone (2007), received critical acclaim and landed him spots on The Charlie Rose Show, Late Night with David Letterman, and The Colbert Report. Vanity Fair wrote of the book, “Saunders’s bitingly clever and compassionate essays are a Mark Twain-style shot in the arm for Americans, an antidote to the dumbing down virus plaguing our country. Well, we live in hope.” His work appears regularly in The New Yorker, GQ, and Harpers Magazine, and has appeared in the O’Henry, Best American Short Story, Best Non-Required Reading, and Best American Travel Writing anthologies. His writings focus on consumerism, corporate culture and the role of mass media in American society.
This event will provide a unique opportunity to hear from a gifted and incisive writer, reading on DePaul’s campus, from his just-published new work, due from Random House the day before the event.
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If you can’t attend the event on Wednesday– or if one George Saunders reading in a week isn’t enough for you– Lincoln Hall, located just off campus at 2424 N. Lincoln Ave., is also hosting a reading with Saunders tomorrow, Tuesday, January 8th.
This event, sponsored by The Book Cellar, Newcity, and Lincoln Hall, will take place at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $5 and 21+ only. You can find more information and buy tickets online at lincolnhallchicago.com/Shows/01-08-2013+George+Saunders.