The Ames Library is pleased to announce that author Louise Erdrich has been selected for the 8th Annual Ames/Milner Visiting Author Program.

Ms. Erdrich will be on campus the evening of Thursday, October 22nd 2009.

3:00 – 4:00 Presentation and Q and A, Milner Library, Illinois State University

7:30 – 8:30 Presentation, Presser Hall, Illinois Wesleyan University

8:30 Book signing, The Ames Library Illinois Wesleyan University

If you have questions or would like to reserve seats for your class, please contact lduke@iwu.edu.

Louise Erdrich is the author of twelve novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her debut novel, Love Medicine, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent novel, The Plague of Doves, a New York Times bestseller, received the highest praise from Philip Roth, who wrote, “Louise Erdrich’s imaginative freedom has reached its zenith—The Plague of Doves is her dazzling masterpiece.” Louise Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.

http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/2905/Louise_Erdrich/index.aspx

Interested in helping the library understand what you need in order to do your research for class assignments?

Want to receive a $10 gift certificate to the IWU book store?

You can do both!  We need students to participate in the following research activities:

• an interview with an anthropologist (about an hour)
• videotaping your research process (about an hour)
• taking photos of some of your daily activities and favorite places

If you are willing to participate in one of the above activities, please contact Andrew Asher at libstudy@iwu.edu or x3362.

The Ames Library is pleased to announce that author Tim O’Brien has been selected for the 7th Annual Ames/Milner Visiting Author Program

Mr. O’Brien will be on campus on Thursday, October 23rd from 2:00 – 3:00 in the Center Court, Hansen Student Center.  The evening’s presentation will be from 7:00 – 8:00 in Braden Auditorium, Bone Student Center, at Illinois State University.  A book signing will follow the evening talk in the Barnes & Noble College Book Store at ISU.

Tim O’Brien has been hailed as “the best American writer of his generation” (San Francisco Chronicle). The author of eight books, O’Brien received the National Book Award in Fiction in 1979 for his novel Going After Cacciato.  In 2005 The Things They Carried was named by the New York Times as one of the twenty best books of the last quarter century.  It received the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award in fiction and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. The French edition of The Things They Carried received the prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, and the title story was selected by John Updike for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of the Century.  In the Lake of the Woods, published in 1994, was chosen by Time magazine as the best novel of that year. The book also received the James Fenimore Cooper Prize from the Society of American Historians and was selected as one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times.  O’Brien’s other works include If I Die in a Combat Zone, Northern Lights, Tomcat in Love and July, July.  His short fiction, which received the National Magazine Award, has appeared in numerous journals, including The New Yorker, Atlantic, Esquire, Playboy, and Harper’s.  Tim O’Brien holds the Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University.