The Hope College Visiting Writers Series will feature Pulitzer Prize- winner Robert Olen Butler, and playwright Elizabeth Dewberry, on Thursday, March 27, at 7 p.m. at the Knickerbocker Theatre.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Butler has published 12 books since 1981, including "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain," which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His short stories have appeared in "The New Yorker," "The Paris Review," "Esquire," "Harpers," "GQ" and many other publications. They also have been chosen for inclusion in four annual editions of "The Best American Short Stories," seven annual editions of "New Stories from the South," and numerous college literature textbooks. His works have been translated into a dozen languages, including Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Polish, Japanese and Greek.
A recipient of both a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts grant, he also won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He was also a charter recipient of the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award given by the Vietnam Veterans of America for "outstanding contributions to American culture by a Vietnam veteran."
Butler has also used the Internet as a writing tool, having allowed viewers to follow along as he created a new creative writing piece.
Since 1995 he has written feature-length screenplays for New Regency, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney and Universal Pictures, and two teleplays for HBO.
Elizabeth Dewberry is the Playwright-in-Residence at Florida State University. Her first full-length play, "Flesh and Blood," appeared in the 1996 Humana Festival and on Broadway. She has also written three novels, including "Sacrament of Lies" and "Break the Heart of Me." One reviewer has said that "Dewberry's story engages the mind-- even as its narrator captivates the heart."
Butler and Dewberry are married to one another.
The reading will be preceded at 6 p.m. by a live performance by the Faculty Jazz Combo, with special guest singer Sunny Wilkenson.
The Knickerbocker Theatre is located at 86 East 8th Street in downtown Holland.