Traverse Area District Library Invites Book Lovers to ‘Read All About It’ with Award-Winning Author Jack Driscoll
Traverse City, Mich; The Traverse Area District Library (TADL) is pleased to announce that Jack Driscoll, author of "The World of a Few Minutes Ago," will pay a special visit to the Main (Woodmere) Branch at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 17 for an evening of first-rate storytelling; book signing and question-and-answer time with guests.
Driscoll is visiting the library as part of the Library of Michigan’s 2013 “Michigan Notable Authors Tour.”
This year, twenty authors whose engaging works were chosen as 2013 Michigan Notable Books selections will visit nearly 50 libraries throughout the state.
“It’s a literary treat to have Driscoll in our community, and we are so pleased to host him at the library to offer an opportunity for him to share his captivating work with our patrons,friends and neighbors in such an open, accessible way,” said Metta T. Lansdale, Jr., TADL director.
“This year’s Michigan Notable Books delve into wonderfully diverse topics and offer something of interest for just about everyone,” said State Librarian Nancy R. Robertson. “The tour offers the opportunity for book enthusiasts in many corners of the state to join in the conversation about what constitutes ‘great writing’ and to hear from some of the Great Lakes region’s most beloved authors.”
Whether writing from the point of view of a twelve-year-old boy accompanying his father on a secret run to the slaughter house, or a seventy-year-old man reassessing both his fifty-year marriage and career as a war photographer, or a sixteen-year-old girl driving through a snowstorm with her driver’s ed instructor, Driscoll manages to seat the reader in the lives of his characters with grace, despite a roughness that often characterizes their lived experience.
"It's not just a place. It's not just a backdrop or a setting or a piece of topicality," said Driscoll. "For me, everything is defined by the physical landscape itself. Place is character. For me, it's tell-tale of everything."
Driscoll, author of four books of poems, a collection of short stories, and four novels, is also the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, the NEH Independent Study Grant, Pushcart and Best American Short Story citations, the PEN/Nelson Algren Fiction Award, the Associated Writing Programs Short Fiction Award, and seven PEN Syndicated Project Short Fiction Awards. He holds an M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts, and a B.A. Magna Cum Laude, from Windham College.
His stories have been read frequently over NPR’s The Sound of Writing, and his work has appeared nationally in magazines, literary journals, and newspapers such as Chicago Tribune, Kansas City Star, Civilization,Poetry, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, and Ploughshares.
His novel, "Lucky Man, Lucky Woman" received the 1998 Pushcart Editors’ Book Award, the Barnes and Noble Discovery of Great New Writers Award, and the 1999 Independent Book Publishers Award for Fiction. Stardog, his third novel, appeared in 2000, and How Like an Angel, a University of Michegan Press Sweetwater release, appeared in May, 2005. "The World A Few Minutes Ago" was published by Wayne State University Press.
Michigan Notable Books is designed to promote reading and raise awareness of Michigan’s literary heritage. The program annually selects 20 of the most outstanding books published in that year – titles that are reflective of Michigan's diverse ethnic, historical, literary and cultural experience.
The 2013 Michigan Notable Books program and tour are made possible thanks to the generous support of the Library of Michigan, the Library of Michigan Foundation, Michigan Department of Education, the Michigan Humanities Council, Meijer, and the Michigan Center for the Book. Media Sponsors are Mittenlit.com, City Pulse, WKAR, Dome, Queue Advertising and Tom Gennara Photography.
The Traverse Area District Library (TADL) is a network of community libraries serving Grand Traverse County and the City of Traverse City through the following facilities: Main (Woodmere) Branch, East Bay, and Kingsley Branches, Fife Lake Public Library, Interlochen Public Library, and the Peninsula Community Library.
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