Watson Presents 2010 Ellison Lecture at Huntingdon CollegeMontgomery, Ala.—Huntingdon College’s Rhoda Coleman Ellison Writers Festival
Lecture will be presented by short story author and novelist Brad Watson, Thursday, February 18, at
7:00 p.m. in the College’s Ligon Chapel, Flowers Hall. The lecture is free and open to the
public and will be followed by a book-signing by the author. Books will be for sale by Capitol Book
and News.
The lecture will occur at the beginning of the tour for Watson’s latest story collection,
“Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives.” His previously published works are the short story
collection “Last Days of the Dog-Men: Stories” (1996), which won a Sue Kaufman Prize for
First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and a novel, “The Heaven of
Mercury” (2002), a finalist for the National Book Award. A native of Meridian, Mississippi,
Watson teaches at at the University of Wyoming. He has taught and/or served as a visiting artist or
writer-in-residence at the Universities of Alabama, Mississippi, West Florida, and
California-Irvine, as well as at Harvard University.
Reviews of “Aliens” include these statements:
“Brad Watson’s stories worm their way through you. Watson’s talent is singular,
truly awesome; he reminds me of Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Conner, Chris Offutt in his bravery,
his unflinching willingness to look at what might set others running. And yet these are not exactly
dark stories—that is part of their magic, they are infused with an uncanny beauty in which
even at the most god awful moments, something is salvaged.”—A.M. Homes, author of
“This Book Will Save Your Life”
“Brad Watson has the gift of seeing both the humor and the humanity in even the most
compromised lives. In precise, surprising prose and gorgeously turned sentences, Watson builds
twelve darkly funny and indelible stories full of characters, long on impulse, short on instinct,
who ask for and receive not only our forgiveness but also our deep recognition.”—Pam
Houston, author of “Sight Hound”
“I got lost in these stories the way I did when I was young and first encountering the power
of fine fiction, reading without any idea of what could possibly happen next, or why, and being
unable to stop turning pages to find out. Brad Watson knows how to honor the deeply mysterious, the
profoundly unsettling, the inadvertently hilarious world of human behavior. And he does it in such a
way as to make it all brand new, all amazing, all as if understood for the very first
time.”—Antonya Nelson, author of “Nothing Right: Short Stories”
The Rhoda Coleman Ellison Writers Festival Lecture was endowed by the late Huntingdon professor
emerita of English for whom it is named, making it possible for the public to enjoy the work of
accomplished authors in lectures that are free and open to all. Huntingdon College, grounded in the
Judeo-Christian tradition of the United Methodist Church, is committed to nurturing growth in faith,
wisdom, and service and to graduating individuals prepared to succeed in a rapidly changing world.
Founded in 1854, Huntingdon is a coeducational liberal arts college.
For more information, contact the Office of Communications at (334) 833-4515.
###
Su Ofe
Associate Vice President for Communications and Marketing
1500 East Fairview Avenue • Montgomery, Alabama 36106
Office: (334) 833-4515 • Cell: (334) 324-6591
|