For release: February 5, 2013
For press information, contact Gabrielle Maxey,901-678-2843

Award-winning fiction writer Lee Smith will finally answer the question “Where do you get your characters?” during an upcoming visit to the University of Memphis. She will discuss “A Life in Books” Thursday, Feb. 21, in the University Center Theatre. A reception will begin at 6 p.m., followed by the program at 6:30.

Lee Smith

Sponsored by the River City Writers Series and the Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities, the event is free and open to the public.

In this unique look at the relationship between a writer’s real life and her fiction, Smith will discuss how her writing changed as she moved from youth into middle age and beyond.  

The author of 12 novels and four collections of short stories, Smith is a recipient of the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and a Southern Book Critics Circle Award. Her books include Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, Family Linen, On Agate Hill, The Last Girls, and News of the Spirit. Her most recent book is a collection of new and selected stories, Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger.

Smith taught for 19 years at North Carolina State University. In 2010, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia. 

The River City Writers Series is sponsored by the Creative Writing Club, the Department of English, Student Event Allocation and The Hohenberg Foundation.

Paid parking is available in the Zach Curlin garage adjacent to the University Center.

For more information, email creativewriting@memphis.edu or holladay@memphis.edu, or call 901-678-2651.