February 23, 2011, Wednesday - 'Telling True Stories Panel' at The Loft

Time: 7:00pm

Location: Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South

Admission:  $10 admission/$5 for Loft members, ASJA members and students. (Tickets available at the door. No advance ticket sales.)

Telling True Stories: 

Three Award-Winning Writers Talk About Literary Journalism
Panel discussion with Deborah Blum, Michael Perry and J.C. Hallman

The future of publishing may be in flux, but one thing remains constant:  There will always be a need for writers who can tell a good story.  This panel brings together three master storytellers to discuss their craft and to examine the role of narrative journalism in the 21st century.

Deborah Blum is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer and the author of four books including her latest, The Poisoner’s Handbook. She has written for The New York Times, Slate, The Wall Street Journal The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Discover, Science News, and New Scientist.  She has appeared as a guest on The Today show, Good Morning America, and NPR’s This American Life, Morning Edition, and Talk of the Nation/Science Friday. (deborahblum.com)

Michael Perry is a humorist and author of the bestselling memoirs Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time, Truck: A Love Story and Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting, as well as the essay collection Off Main Street. Perry has written for Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, Backpacker, Orion and Salon.com, and is a contributing editor to Men’s Health.  His stories have appeared in the The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007, the Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing and other anthologies. (www.sneezingcow.com)

J.C. Hallman is the author of three books of literary journalism, In Utopia, The Chess Artist, and The Devil is a Gentleman, and a book of stories, The Hospital for Bad Poets.  As a journalist, he has interviewed a tyrant, attended satanic rituals, joined Scientology, lived at communes, dissected heads, and sailed on the world's first residential cruise ship.  His stories have appeared in the Best American Travel Writing and other anthologies. (www.jchallman.com)

Cosponsored by the Upper Midwest chapter of the American Society of Journalists & Authors