Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler will serve as the first Mississippi State University Institute for the Humanities Writer in Residence, reading selections from his fiction on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in McCool Hall’s Taylor Auditorium on the MSU campus. The event is free and open to the public. This program is financially assisted by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Mississippi Humanities Council.
Robert Olen Butler is the author of six short story collections and 14 novels and received the Pulitzer Prize for “A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain” in 1993. He is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Butler is currently a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor at Florida State University, where he holds the Michael Shaara Chair in Creative Writing. He also has a personal connection to Mississippi and the university through his wife, Kelly Lee Butler, who graduated with an master’s degree in English from MSU.
Butler’s residency is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and its Institute for the Humanities, the Judy and Bobby Shackouls Honors College, the Mississippi Humanities Council, and the Office of the Provost.
During his week-long residency, Butler will also meet to discuss his work with the Institute for the Humanities Reading Group, which is composed of members of the Starkville, West Point and Columbus community and led by associate professor of English Becky Hagenston. Butler will also hold open office hours and participate in a creative writing class taught by associate professor of English Michael Kardos. These events, along with numerous opportunities to interact with Butler informally throughout the week, will highlight the value of literature, reading and writing throughout MSU’s campus and the greater community.
Other notable works by Butler include “A Small Hotel” (2011), “Tabloid Dreams” (1996), and “Severance” (2006). Butler’s most recent work, “The Star of Istanbul,” is a thriller that traces the adventures of an American spy during World War I.
For more information about Butler’s visit, got to the Institute for the Humanities Webpage at ih.msstate.edu/ or call 662-325-7095.
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