July 6, 2pm: The Hartford Circus Fire – 70th Anniversary Commemoration

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The Hartford Circus Fire – 70th Anniversary Commemoration

Sunday, July 6, 2:00 p.m.

On July 6th, 1944, happy families descended on Barbour Street in Hartford for the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus. When the big top went up in flames, 700 people were injured and almost 170 people lost their lives. Authors Stewart O’Nan (“The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy”) and Mike Skidgell (the just-published “The Hartford Circus Fire: Tragedy Under the Big Top”) join us to discuss their books on the largest circus fire tragedy in American history.

Presented in partnership with the Hartford Courant and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center.

Followed by a book sale and signing.

This is a free event, but reservations are recommended. Call (860) 280-3130 or click here.

The Odds: The Buffalo News Book Club, June 2014 Selection

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Novel of couple’s critical Falls trip is Book Club June selection

A couple return to Niagara Falls in a desperate effort to save their marriage

You probably know a couple just like Art and Marion Fowler, the long-married, middle-aged pair whose complicated and unexpectedly tender story Stewart O’Nan tells in his novel “The Odds.”

You might even be just like Art and Marion Fowler.

As we meet them, they are financially battered and emotionally scarred, facing the loss of their house in Cleveland and the inevitable end of their lives together.

And yet they have the ability to take one more gamble, a desperate bet that just might save them.

Where better to throw their future on the line than a casino in Niagara Falls, Ont.?

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This Week’s Must Read: Malaysia Flight 370 and the World’s Attention

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NPR has highlighted Stewart’s novel Songs for the Missing in regard to the missing Malaysia Flight 370:

What happens when the systems, institutions, technology and networks we’ve put into place for our protection, fail us? Consigned to speculation, how do we deal with the unresolved? What if the scant information we are able to cobble together, only deepens the mystery, and compounds our unknowing? What lengths will we go to for the answers we must have?

These are just a few of the many questions that have arisen in the wake of the unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Stewart O’Nan’s brilliant 2008 novel, Songs for the Missing, though it features no ill-fated airliners, raises many of the same questions.

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University of North Carolina 2014 Distinguished Writer-in-Residence

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Stewart will be visiting the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the 2014 Distinguished Writer-in-Residence.  Here’s his upcoming schedule.

2014 Distinguished Writer-in-Residence Reading
Thursday, February 27, 7:30 p.m.
Genome Sciences Building Auditorium

Film Screening of Snow Angels
Monday, February 24, 5:00pm
Varsity Theater on Franklin St
Discussion with Stewart O’Nan following screening

“Baseball: The Great American Story” Panel
Wednesday, February 26, 3:30pm
Hyde Hall
Panelists: Coach Mike Fox, Tar Heels baseball
Gabby Calvocoressi, poet and catcher emeritus
Stewart O’Nan, Faithful
Sam Stephenson, Bull City Summer

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