Ohio literary field trip, anyone?

Our friends at the Ohioana Library have just announced a new series of events you won’t want to miss. They have organized day trips around Ohio they are calling “On the Road” with Ohioana Saturday Literary Adventure Series of 2013. Each trip focuses on a different literary topic or author – you will meet authors and visit the places that inspired them!

The series begins on April 13 in Dayton with a celebration of National Poetry Month. And our fans won’t want to miss the November 2 event – “James Thurber and his Columbus Haunts.” Mark your calendars!

For the full listing of trips and to purchase tickets, visit the Ohioana Library website here.

Join us for a free reception and reading with Robin Yocum!

Thursday, November 1
5:30 – 6:30 reception
6:45 – 7:30 reading and chat
Thurber Center, 91 Jefferson Avenue

One of Columbus’s favorites, Robin Yocum, former reporter with the Columbus Dispatch who won 30 local, state and national journalism awards, has turned his talent to writing page-turning fiction. Last year his first novel, Favorite Sons, was named the 2011 USA Today Book News Book of the Year for mystery and suspense. His new novel, The Essay, will be released October 2012. As Donald Ray Pollock, author of the critically acclaimed Knockemstiff and The Devil All the Time,  said: “After reading The Essay, a tough but compassionate story about a poor teenager in southern Ohio who struggles to make good, I am convinced that Robin Yocum is one of the most talented and graceful writers working in America today.”

Thurber House is pleased to shine the spotlight on this local author with a wine and
hors d’oeuvres reception followed by Robin reading from his new novel, chatting about his work, and answering questions. Both his novels will be for sale at the event.

Please call Erin Deel at 614-464-1032 x.11 or email edeel@thurberhouse.org if you plan to attend.

Special Events With Erik Larson and Christopher Buckley

Two huge special events are just around the corner – do you have your tickets yet?

Renowned historical non-fiction author Erik Larson will be joining us on Friday, May 4. His new book, In the Garden of Beasts, is set in Germany in 1933, when a benign man named William E. Dodd took his post as United States ambassador, just as Adolf Hitler began his rise to power. The book tells Dodd’s story, as well as the story of his unfaithful wife – and the impeccably researched story of Hitler’s Germany before World War II.

Thurber Prize for American Humor winner Christopher Buckley is a brilliant political satirist. He will return to the Thurber House stage on Wednesday, May 16. His newest work of satire, They Eat Puppies, Don’t They?, features a Washington lobbyist and his female aide who start a rumor that the Chinese secret service is planning to assassinate the Dalai Lama, in order to push a top secret weapons system through Congress. The series of events that follow are vintage Buckley.

Both events will be held at the Columbus Museum of Art, 480 E. Broad Street. A wine and hors d’oeuvres reception for limited guests will be held before each reading, and tickets are available for the reception and reading, or the reading only. Ready to purchase your ticket before they are sold out? Click here!

Spring Preview: Exciting Events to Add to Your Calendar

Spring is in the air – and you won’t want to miss any of the great events Thurber House has planned for the season!

Do you know a high school-aged student with a love for writing? Our Young Writers’ Studio gives them a chance to get together with like-minded peers and work with a professional writer to hone their talent. Remaining dates for this season are: March 28, April 11, April 25, May 9, and May 23. Call 614-464-1032 ext. 13 for registration information.

Spaces are available in several of our Adult Writing Workshops – are you interested in writing graphic novels, journaling, plotting a romance novel, or composing poetry? Click here to check out the classes and our award-winning lineup of instructors.

Speaking of graphic novels, we will be welcoming graphic novelist (and OSU alum) Paul Hornschemeier to Thurber House next week as our latest Writer-In-Residence. We’re excited to be partnering with the Columbus Museum of Art for his stay here. Welcome back to Columbus, Paul!

The application deadline for the John E. Nance Adult Writer-In-Residence Program has been extended to May 1. This program is a residency for a working writer in James Thurber’s boyhood home, and it gives the writer the gift of time to develop his or her work-in-progress.

Have you heard about the Kente project? We are partnering with Columbus Children’s Choir, Thiossane West African Dance Institute and Columbus Children’s Theatre for this project – the four organizations will work together to present West African folktales through dance, drama, spoken word, and song. We will host Dr. Buchi Offodile for a week-long residency while he teaches students at Thurber House and local library branches about folktales. You can find out more about the Kente Project via their website, Facebook page, Twitter, and YouTube channel.

We have four more Evenings with Authors events left in the Winter/Spring season. What a fantastic opportunity to meet some of your favorite best-selling authors! Lisa Lutz will be here March 20, Beth Gutcheon will be here April 4, Anne Perry will be here April 18, and J. Courtney Sullivan wraps up the season on June 5. Tickets are still available for all four events – order them here or call 614-464-1032.

And if you’re like us and can’t help but look forward to summer, we’ve got you covered there too. Summer Writing Camp registration is underway! Fabulous programs for kids in grades 2 – 8 are planned. Need more information? Click here. We also have an exciting lineup for our summer Literary Picnics, so keep an eye on this blog and our website for more information as they are announced.

For more information about these offerings (and two very special literary events we have coming up in May), be sure to like us on Facebook.

The Slightly Less Than (Mostly) Official Event Wrap-up: Tess Gerritsen

Last night marked a very special occasion for Thurber House: we hosted our first ever special summer event featuring international bestselling author Tess Gerritsen. Timing could not have been more perfect, as Gerritsen’s latest novel, The Silent Girl, just hit book store shelves last week, and Rizzoli & Isles, the hit TNT show based on her books, entered its second season Monday night.

Over 150 people gathered at CCAD’s Canzani Center to hear Gerritsen speak about the inspiration for her novels, story lines and characters. Plus, she gave a quick preview of what she’s working on next – including the 10th installment of Rizzoli & Isles series.

One of the most interesting stories Gerritsen shared with the audience was how the now beloved Jane Rizzoli wasn’t even supposed to be in more than one book. She was originally thought to be a secondary character and was set to be killed in The Surgeon, the first of the Rizzoli and Isles series. But by the end of the book, Gerritsen had grown so attached to Rizzoli and couldn’t bring herself to kill her off, and so began a great crime fighting partnership, Rizzoli and Isles.

Gerritsen also spent some time discussing how she comes up with such chilling storylines … and you might be surprised to find out that they’re actually based on real-life occurrences. Stories from the Boston Globe, National Enquirer (yes, Gerritsen admitted to reading the tabloid daily!) and other major news sources have all inspired Gerritsen’s story lines. It also helps that as a child, Gerritsen spent a lot of time with her mother, who used horror movies to learn English.

Overall the night was a tremendous success, and the audience enjoyed every minute of Gerritsen’s stories. Stay tuned for some video clips coming soon!

BOGO Tickets Thurber House Hosts NYT Bestselling Author Tess Gerritsen

As you may already know, we’re gearing up for a special event with Tess Gerritsen on Tuesday, July 12. Today, we’re announcing a last-minute ticket special for those of you who haven’t purchased your tickets yet:

The $15 tickets are now available buy one, get one free. To take advantage of this special offer, call 614-464-1032 ext. 11.

Tess is the international bestselling author of the Rizzoli & Isles police detective series, also a hit show on TNT. Her brand new novel, The Silent Girl, hit bookstores just a few days ago and we are thrilled that she will be with us in Columbus to share her latest edgy, murder mystery!

Summer Special Event details:

Tuesday, July 12, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.
Canzani Center, Columbus College of Art and Design
60 Cleveland Ave.
Columbus, OH 43215
For more information visit http://www.thurberhouse.org/tess-gerritsen.html

We hope to see you there!

July Author Events Preview

This summer seems to be flying by … probably because we’re having so much fun with our annual programming! Things will continue to heat up through July, with a Special Summer Event and two more picnics in our annual Summer Literary Picnic series.

Special Summer Event with Tess Gerritsen

On July 12^th, Thurber House will host international bestselling author Tess Gerritson, whose brand new novel, The Silent Girl, will hit bookstores just days before she comes to Columbus. The Silent Girl is the latest installment in Gerritsen’s popular suspense series featuring Detective Rizzoli and medical examiner Isles. The books have been translated into 37 languages and have sold 20 million copies worldwide. Plus, the TNT-TV series based on the books, Rizzoli and Isles, just entered its second season. The Silent Girl is sure to follow in Gerritsen’s bestselling tradition.

The special event begins at 7 p.m. at the Canzani Center Auditorium at the Columbus College of Art and Design. Tickets for this event are $15 in advance and $18 at the door. Visit http://www.thurberhouse.org/tess-gerritsen.html for more details and ticket information.

Summer Picnic Series

In the third event of this year’s Summer Picnic Series, Leah Stewart will make her way to Thurber House on July 6^thto read from and discuss her newest novel, Husband and Wife. A happily married mother of two children, Sarah Price’s world gets turned upside down when she finds out that her husband has been unfaithful.

Next, the New Voices picnic takes place on July 20th. This picnic will celebrate three emerging Ohio authors: novelist Amanda Flower, essayist, and former Thurber House young docent, Ellen Waddell, and non-fiction writer Lee Kravitz.

Flower’s novel, Maid of Murder, was nominated for a 2010 Agatha Award for Best First Novel, and tells the story of a college librarian in Ohio who must hunt down the person who murdered her childhood friend and framed her brother for the crime. Waddell, who just graduated from New Albany High School and will be entering John Hopkins University in the fall, will read from her senior project, a published book of essays entitled, She Said, Looking Forward. Lee Kravitz, from Cleveland, will finish up the evening discussing his first book, Unfinished Business, which records an entire year doing the most important things in his life and reconnecting with those close to him.

Both picnics begin at 6:15 pm and takes place on the Thurber House lawn, with tours available before and after dinner. Tickets are $15 for the reading only or $25 for both dinner and the reading. More details and ticket information can be found at http://www.thurberhouse.org/2011-season.html.

Will we see you there?

The Slightly Less Than (Mostly) Official Event Wrap-Up: Justin Cronin

…and like those heroes of a post-apocalyptic world, fighting for their lives in the face of an unstoppable viral horde bent on the destruction of humankind, only the bravest dared face the, let’s be honest here, overly chilly and damp weather and questionable road conditions to bear witness to the Thurber House Special Event with Justin Cronin.  And special it was, for the author was insightful and funny, and the audience did murmur and titter, and freshly pressed paperbacks were purchased and signed, and Yelp! did provide cross-promotional synergy.  And lo! they did behold…

-excerpt, An Overly Silly First Draft of This Blog

A Thurber House Special Event featuring Justin Cronin

This was a really cool event, and Cronin’s book, The Passage, is a really great example of how a great idea can come from anywhere, even, and perhaps especially, when you don’t expect it.  After reading the audience a teaser chapter from the second part in his trilogy-to-be, Cronin told a couple stories about the making of the first book.  It starts with his daughter basically telling him she is worried his previous novels may be boring.  Upon asking her what she would have him write about she responded by telling him to write a book about a little girl who saves the world.  For a while after that, the two of them made a game out of thinking up ideas for this story and it was only after a while of doing this that he realized there might be something worth publishing.  An inauspicious start to be sure but Cronin really created a fully realized, well-planned, and epically scaled story from that simple start.  The Passage is a genre book for sure, mixing elements of thrillers, horrors, dystopian stories, sci-fi, and so on, but it is also just a really well written story about people, and I highly recommend it.

This event also wrapped up the Winter/Spring season for Thurber House.  Not to worry, though, the Literary Picnics start June 8!  The Thurber Treat is up first, so all the writers out there need to check out the rules for the writing contest and enter their stories!

Next Week: A Thurber House Special Event with Justin Cronin!

Prepare to be swept up in an epic post-apocalyptic story of the destruction of mankind by its own creation, and the potential salvation that lies with a small group of survivors.  Justin Cronin comes to Columbus Tuesday, May 17 for a Thurber House Special Event with his New York Times best seller, The Passage.

After a breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment, it takes little time for the world as we know it to die, and another to be born – a new primal landscape of predators and prey.  The Passage has been likened to Stephen King’s vastly popular novel, The Stand.

Cronin is the author of two previous novels including Mary and O’Neil, which won the Pen/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize, and The Summer Guest.  Movie rights to The Passage, as well as the next two installments in the trilogy, were recently purchased by Fox 2000.  He currently lives with his family in Houston, Texas where he is a Professor of English at Rice University.

Tickets for this event are now Buy One, Get One Free!  Tickets are $15 and the event takes place at 7:30 p.m. at the Columbus Performing Arts Center, 549 Franklin Ave.  To redeem this special offer, click here, or call Thurber House at 614-464-1032 ext. 11.

The Slightly Less Than (Mostly) Official Event Wrap-Up: Anna Quindlen

Welcome to the third installment of the continuing event wrap-up series!

We’ve had a lot of great feedback here at the SLTMOEWU desk and I’d like to take some space here at the beginning to respond to a few frequently asked questions.

Q.  In the first wrap-up your name was redacted, who the heck are you?
A.  I will not reveal my identity on this blog.  Astute readers, however, could find hidden clues in the past two articles.  Dan Brown would’ve figured it out by now.

Q.  It doesn’t seem like your time management skills are quite up to snuff.  When will each new blog appear?
A.  The SLTMOEWU blog will be uploaded for your reading pleasure 1-2 days after each event barring acts of God, sickness, more important deadlines, or really interesting YouTube videos about cats.

Q.  Golly you’re a good blog writer, what made you decide to start this?
A.  I decided to write this blog mainly because it sounded fun!  Now I gaze into the gaping maw of emptiness that is the Microsoft Word blank page template and find my own soul staring back out at me contemptuously…

…OK, the FAQ seems to be taking a turn.  Let’s move on to the event!

 

A Special Evening of Conversation with Anna Quindlen

Hosted by Connie Schultz

Despite an overly warm theater and some unfortunate folks who had to move their cars after the talk started I think this was my favorite event so far.  To be fair, it does help that I got to see most of this one, but Anna and Connie were an absolute joy to watch and judging from the audience reaction afterwards, I’m not alone in thinking that.  I think both of their years of experience in journalism had a lot to do with that as the questions and answers were really interesting and insightful.

In light of her background, I’m surprised how much of an instinctual write Anna is.  I imagined her previous jobs would inspire a mountain of research before starting a book but that isn’t really the case.  She spoke much more about finding the emotional core of her characters and living in their skin while writing about them.  She also has a large amount of the book worked out in her head before ever writing anything down, and reads her words aloud when finished writing to make sure they sound like something a person would really say.

Anna and Connie are longtime friends and they had a great rapport on stage.  It was especially fun once they got talking about their children and husbands.  Anna told a funny story about her husband getting upset at the novel Black and Blue (which is about a battered woman), because everyone always assumes novels have some autobiographical elements to them and he was afraid of the backlash.

Those of you who were there know that there were many, many other funny, intriguing and inspiring moments in the evening and unfortunately I cannot share them all here.  We have another great author next week, though, so get your tickets before it’s too late and maybe we’ll see you there!