The Thurber House | Literary Picnics

OUR FABULOUS SUMMER 2008 SEASON

Host: Katharine Moore
The Annual Thurber Treat – Wednesday, June 11

For this year’s contest, writers are asked to compose advice column parodies similar to those that James Thurber wrote in his story, “The Pet Department,” which is collected in the best-selling, The Thurber Carnival. Katharine Moore, Executive Director of the German Village Society, and part-time director of the Jefferson Center for Learning and the Arts, will read excerpts from Thurber’s story, then the contest winners will read their entries. If you would like to enter, click here for entry guidelines.

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.

Dayton, Ohio native Katrina Kittle will read 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.

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.

Brock Clarke will 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.

Thanks to American Electric Power for their support of our Literary Picnics season.

Thanks also to our media sponsor, WOSU Public Media, to The Westin Columbus , formerly the Great Southern Hotel, and to Party Panache catering. A special thanks also to the Greater Columbus Arts Council, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Joey and William Henderson and Florence E.K. Hurd funds of the Columbus Foundation.