Short Story Author Anthony Doerr to Give a Reading as Part of Working Writers Series

Anthony Doerr, author of short stories, a novel, a memoir, and essays on science, will give a reading as part of the Working Writers Series on Thursday, Nov. 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The event, sponsored by the College’s Creative Writing Program, is free and open to the public.  

Doerr is the author of four books: The Shell Collector (Penguin, 2003), About Grace (Penguin, 2005), Four Seasons in Rome (Scribner, 2007), and, most recently, Memory Wall (Scribner, 2010).

Memory Wall, which takes place on four continents and addresses issues ranging from Alzheimer’s in South Africa to infertility in Wyoming to fishing for endangered sturgeon in Lithuania, has received numerous awards including being named a Notable Book of 2010 in the New York Times, a Top 12 Book of 2010 by the Boston Globe, and a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year.

The New York Times called Memory Wall: “Strange and beautiful…Doerr writes about the big questions, the imponderables, the major metaphysical dreads, and he does it fearlessly.”

“Most writers should want to be Anthony Doerr when they grow up—short story alchemist, novelist, travelogueur; anthologized, lionized, winner of literary awards—despite which his writing really is crazy good,” according to The Oregonian

Doerr’s short fiction has won four O. Henry Prizes and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, and The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction. He has won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho with his wife and two sons. He teaches in the MFA program at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. His book reviews have appeared in the New York Times and Der Spiegel, and he writes a regular column on science books for the Boston Globe.

The 2011-12 Working Writers Series will also include the following readings and performances during the fall semester:

• Thursday, Nov. 17 – Rosanna Warren, poet and translator

• Thursday, Dec. 8 – Steve Almond, author of both fiction and creative nonfiction, and Betsey Lerner, a poet, nonfiction writer, editor, and literary agent, in a panel on “A Life in Letters,” moderated by Leah Hager Cohen, the Jenks Chair of Contemporary American Letters at Holy Cross

The Working Writers Series was formerly known as the Visiting Writers Series.