Real Characters: The Writing Lifestyle Depicted in Old School
A National Endowment for the Arts initiative, The Big Read returns to Kansas City in April 2009 to bring readers the Tobias Wolff novel Old School.
Through the combined efforts of the Libraries of Greater Kansas City, there are more opportunities than ever to join The Big Read – and the Kansas City Public Library is doing its part with a series of discussions focused on themes presented throughout Old School. Get acquainted with the novel or enhance your understanding of its meaning through these presentations.
| Related events: | |
| • | The Forked Tongue: Truth and Fiction in Old School |
| • | Beyond Mere Embarrassment: Jewish Identity in Old School |
| • | A Conversation with Tobias Wolff |
Real Characters:
The Writing Lifestyle Depicted in Old School
Brian Daldorph presents Real Characters: The Writing Lifestyle Depicted in Old School on Wednesday, April 8, at 6:30 p.m. at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St.
The high school students in Old School are fascinated by their favorite authors and seek to emulate them – with one boy going so far as to retype Ernest Hemingway’s books. This presentation examines the cultural myths surrounding the lifestyle of famous authors and compares these myths to the real lives of the writers featured in Old School: Hemingway, Ayn Rand, and Robert Frost. This deconstruction of the romantic view of writers will also seek to answer the question: why do writers write?
Daldorph teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Kansas.