Author Archives: SJW

Writer-in-Residence Inspires at Plaza Reading

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It would be easy to imagine that an award-winning author of 17 published novels has always been a literary genius. Yet, Stewart O’Nan, the university’s 2017 Cockefair Writer-in-Residence, started out as an engineer.

The Cockefair Writer-in-Residence is one of the creative writing department’s most significant annual programs. This year, O’Nan taught a class to graduate students on Oct. 23 and followed it with an Oct. 24 reading at the Plaza Library.

“I first read one of O’Nan’s books as a graduate student in Indiana,” English professor Christie Hodgen reminisced as she introduced O’Nan at the reading. “People were passing it around like a great secret, saying, ‘You’ve got to read this.’”

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10/24/17 6:30 pm: The Kansas City Public Library – A Conversation With Stewart O’Nan

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Tuesday, October 24, 2017
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch
4801 Main Street, KC, MO 64112
816-701-3481
There’s no pigeonholing novelist Stewart O’Nan or his books. They are, The New York Times said, “as remarkable for their precise, economical language and depth of characterization as for the fact that each is as different from its predecessor, in style, tone and narrative approach, as if it had come from a different author.”

O’Nan’s work spans from Snow Angels and Last Night at the Lobster to a nonfiction collaboration with Stephen King, Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season. In conjunction with his four-day stay as the Cockefair Writer in Residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, he discusses his craft and career in a conversation with Angela Elam of KCUR-FM’s New Letters on the Air.

Co-presented by the Writers at Work Round Table, the Carolyn Benton Cockefair Chair at UMKC, and the UMKC English Department.

Reminder – 10/22/17 9PM: Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown in Pittsburgh on CNN

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Anthony Bourdain, center, has a beer with author Stewart O’ Nan at the Squirrel Hill Cafe while filming a segment for his CNN show, “Parts Unknown.” [photo credit: CNN/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

A reminder to watch the episode of  Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown this Sunday, which is all about Pittsburgh!  10/22/17 9PM on CNN.

Check out the coverage:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Parts Known: Anthony Bourdain captures Pittsburgh as it is now

Food & Wine: Anthony Bourdain Weighs Pittsburgh’s Transition in Latest ‘Parts Unknown’

The Beaver County Times: CNN show explores Pittsburgh’s changing food culture

10/22/17 9PM ET: Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown in Pittsburgh!

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May 25, 2017: Anthony Bourdain rides a train from Colombo, Sri Lanka north to Jaffna, Sri Lanka on May 25, 2017. (photo by David Scott Holloway)

Mark it down on your calendars!  On Sunday, October 22 at 9PM ET, Anthony Bourdain’s show Parts Unknown will be featuring Pittsburgh.  Here’s the blurb:

Pittsburgh (airdate: October 22) Bourdain delves into a dining scene at a crossroads: part iconic steel city defined by blue-collar, working-class comfort food – steak and potatoes, sausage and sauerkraut – and part foodie boom-town catering to the new high-tech industry. Bourdain criss-crosses the fault lines of old and new by sitting down with, among others, professional wrestlers, a civil rights activist, and writer and Pittsburgh native Stewart O’Nan.  Pioneer chefs of the city’s burgeoning restaurant scene Sonja Finn and Justin Severino host a back-country pig roast.  And chef Kevin Suousa serves grass fed beef short ribs at his new restaurant, Superior Motors.

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