Book Lovers’ Night features author Peter Smith
January 12, 2011
Minnesota author and humorist Peter Smith is the featured guest at the Book Lovers' Night Wednesday, Jan. 26, at Alumnae Hall, Haehn Campus Center, CSB.
Doors open at 6:15 p.m. Community members will comment on and recommend books to others at 6:45 p.m., and Smith will speak at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Smith, a 1968 Saint John's University graduate, will read from his book A Porch Sofa Almanac (University of Minnesota Press, 2010), a collection of essays about everyday life in Minnesota. The essays are organized by season, beginning with fall and progressing through the calendar year.
"The entire state comes across as some wonderful, slightly quirky treasure unearthed at a church basement rummage sale," Smith writes. A Porch Sofa Almanac is his first collection of essays for Minnesota Public Radio, where he has been a weekly contributor on Morning Edition with Cathy Wurzer for four years.
He will also read selections from his memoir, A Cavalcade of Lesser Horrors, which will be published in the fall of 2011 (University of Minnesota Press).
Smith has also published magazine articles, fiction, poetry and op-ed pieces. Some of his short stories have earned honorable mentions or finalist positions in the Lorian Hemingway and Robert Olen Butler competitions.
Selected books from the CSB and SJU Bookstores will be available for a 20 percent discount, and Smith will be available to sign copies of A Porch Sofa Almanac after his reading. Food and beverages will be available at O'Connell's or at McGlynn's Sports Café, both located in the Haehn Campus Center.
Book Lovers' Night is sponsored by the CSB/SJU Libraries, Literary Arts Institute at CSB and the CSB President's Office. For more information, contact Clemens Library at 320-363-2119 or email [email protected].