3/21/15, 7 pm: Elizabeth Berg and WRITING MATTERS present STEWART O’NAN

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Stewart will be at the Oak Park Arts Center and Hemingway Museum in Oak Park, IL next Saturday!  Check out a great story about Elizabeth Berg’s Writing Matters in the Chicago Tribune and on her own site.

The details of the event is as follows:

Elizabeth Berg and WRITING MATTERS present STEWART O’NAN
3/21/15, 7pm

Four times a year, we present a gifted author who gives an intimate and unique (and often amusing) talk about him or herself and how they became the writer they are. We focus on authors we love and feel deserve far more attention than they get. This is an elevated kind of book signing, designed to be part of a real evening out. We provide the author, the beautiful venue of the auditorium at the Hemingway Museum, and wonderful things to eat and drink (this time it’s champagne and extravagant desserts!). All the proceeds of our ticket sales go to The Magic Tree Bookshop for use by the children at Hephzibah: the kids can wander in,  pick out a book that speaks to them, and take it home, for free.

At each event, we have an essay reader as a warm-act, talking about what books and reading mean to them. We always have some sort of surprise, too. We allow for questions from the audience at each event.

Stewart O’Nan, our March author, has a new novel called WEST OF SUNSET coming out January 13th. It’s about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s years in Hollywood, which came near the end of his life, and it’s garnered great reviews. He’ll talk about this and his other books, and you’ll come away with a real sense of who this author is. Come and take part in this wonderful series; you’ll leave inspired, edified, and happy.  We’re growing for a reason–people really like what we do! The comment I hear most often it, “This was so much FUN!”

“O’Nan is on a kind of mission to restore a simple, true sense of humanity to the novel.”
–THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

[get your ticket!]

O’Nan Reads From ‘West of Sunset’ at Point Park

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This year marks the 90th anniversary of the publication of “The Great Gatsby” – the height of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary fame. But a new novel suggests that some of Fitzgerald’s best work came much later, at a time of loss and personal struggle.

Its author, Pittsburgh native Stewart O’Nan, will read from”West of Sunset” Wednesday evening at Point Park University, where he’s teaching a master class in fiction writing.

90.5 WESA’s Josh Raulerson spoke with O’Nan about Fitzgerald’s career as a Hollywood screenwriter during the final years of his life.

[listen]

West of Sunset – The Christian Science Monitor Interview

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Q: What attracted you to the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald in Los Angeles?

We’ll always be fascinated with Scott and Zelda’s fall from grace from the pinnacle of celebrity and fame. That attracts a lot of writers and readers. But I want to talk about that later story when he gets up off that mat and becomes himself again. I want Scott’s point of view, and you can only do that though fiction.

Q: What is happening to Fitzgerald when the book begins?

It’s 1937. His wife Zelda is in a private asylum in North Carolina, and he realizes that she is not getting better. His daughter is in Connecticut, and he’s deeply in debt to his agent. He has no other prospects, and he has no choice but to try screenwriting for the third time.

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West of Sunset at #8 on the L.A. Times Bestseller List; 3/11 6pm Event at Point Park University

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On Wednesday, March 11 at 6pm, Stewart will be giving a public reading at Point Park University.  Read all about it:

BESTSELLING NOVELIST STEWART O’NAN TO LEAD MASTER CLASS AT POINT PARK

Stewart O’Nan is the latest award-winning author to be a part of the Point Park University Writers’ Series. He will teach a master class exclusively for Point Park students March 11, 2015, and then will lead a public reading at 6 p.m. in Lawrence Hall 200.

Maureen Corrigan and Stewart O’Nan on Writers on Writing

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Maureen Corrigan, author and NPR book critic, talks to co-host Nicole Nelson about her latest book, So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be And Why It Endures, as well as what some of Fitzgerald’s revisions left behind in earlier drafts of the novel, the importance of water imagery in the book, and her experience retracing some of the author’s steps. In the second half, Stewart O’Nan discusses his latest novel West of Sunset, which fictionalizes the last chapter of Fitzgerald’s life, the Hollywood years. He talks about coming late to appreciate Fitzgerald himself, what kind of research was required to immerse himself in the world of Hollywood in the late 1930s, and how his experience writing narrative nonfiction helped create a world that served both history and his character. (Broadcast date: February 25, 2015)

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