Author Sy Montgomery to Read at the University of Connecticut
The University of Connecticut Creative Writing Program is pleased to announce that author Sy Montgomery will be giving a reading TODAY at 7:00 PM, in the Dodd Center’s Konover Auditorium as part of the Aetna Celebration of Creative Nonfiction.
Sy Montgomery is a naturalist, author, and scriptwriter who writes for children as well as for adults. She is the author of 15 books, including The Good Good Pig, her memoir of life with her pig, Christopher Hogwood. She also writes a popular nature column for The Boston Globe, which has described her as part Indiana Jones, part Emily Dickinson. In 2007, her children’s book Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea received the 2007 Orbis Pictus Award and was an Honor book for the ALA Sibert Award.
Montgomery is a graduate of Syracuse University, a triple major with degrees in Magazine Journalism and French Language, Literature, and Psychology. She has been awarded Honorary Doctorates of Humane Letters from Keene State College (2004), Franklin Pierce University (2011) and Southern New Hampshire University (2011). In the process of her research, she has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire, bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica, and hunted by a tiger in India.
In praise of her latest book, Birdology, The American Library Association’s BOOKLIST states: “Montgomery gives herself over so wholeheartedly to animals, and other humans who share her passion for creatures both rare and ubiquitous, that her nature chronicles are uniquely radiant.”
Prior to Montgomery’s readings, we will be honoring the student winners of the Aetna Creative Nonfiction Awards this year. The two undergraduate winners are Michael Antony Jefferson II for “Carry That Weight” and Danilo Machado for “Desempacando.” Three graduate students tied to win: Kristina Reardon for “Cardboard Boxes.” Erick Piller for “Two Busts: Pericles and Huey P. Long,” and Abigail Fagan for “On Guns.” Each of these students will be reading excerpts from their winning piece.
The reading is free and open to the public. The Konover Auditorium in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center is located behind the Homer Babbidge Library at 405 Babbidge Road. For more information, please visit the Creative Writing Program website at www.creativewriting.uconn.edu
Sponsors:
Creative Writing Program
Aetna Chair-of-Writing
For more information, contact: Sean Forbes at sean.forbes@uconn.edu