Kansas novelist opens writers series

  Monday, September 8, 2014 2:00 AM
  News

Pittsburg, KS

The Pittsburg State University Distinguished Visiting Writers Series opens on Thursday, Sept. 11, with a writer whose love for Kansas and its people is evident throughout his considerable body of work.

Novelist Thomas Fox Averill will read from his works at 8 p.m. on Sept. 11, in the Crimson and Gold Ballroom of the Overman Student Center. A reception will follow in Kansas East and West.

Averill, winner of the O Henry Award and a finalist for the Spur Award, is well known as a writer and scholar. He has published numerous works of fiction, short stories and stories on Kansas and is a frequent speaker on Kansas culture. Since its inception, Averill has been a, adviser for the Public Television program “Sunflower Journeys” and he helped found and was the first director of the Washburn Center for Kansas Studies.

Averill’s novels are “Secrets of the Tsil Café,” “The Slow Air of Ewan MacPherson,” and “rode.” His story collections are “Passes at the Moon,” “Seeing Mona Naked,” and “Ordinary Genius.” He is the editor of “What Kansas Means to Me: Twentieth Century Writers on the Sunflower State,” In the Fall of 1996, Eagle Books (Wichita) brought out his “Oleadegr's Guide to Kansas: How You Know When You're Here.”

Averill’s work is influenced by setting, especially his long residence in Kansas.

“The longer I’ve been in Kansas,” he said, “the better I get to know it, the more I read the rich and amazing body of literature that has been, and is being, created here, the more I feel tied to this place.”

The Distinguished Visiting Writers Series is sponsored by the PSU Department of English and the Student Fee Council.