4/26/13

SLU's Friends of Libraries Presents Lecture by English Prof. Graham

Paul Graham

CANTON - The Friends of Owen D. Young and Launders Libraries' Commencement lecture will be given by St. Lawrence University Associate Professor of English Paul Graham on Saturday, May 18, at 1:30 p.m. in Herring-Cole. The event is open to the public, free of charge.

Graham, a 1999 graduate of St. Lawrence, will read a piece from Crazy Season, a collection of his short-story fiction released last summer.

“In eleven stories, Crazy Season reveals the tiny fractures in the otherwise stable American lives of lovers, spouses, friends, and strangers,” says the publisher, Kitsune Books. “Spanning WWII England to Upstate New York, from the backyards of adolescence to the dark corners of adulthood, these varied tales follow characters confronting the costs of sexual desire and restraint, the haunting of memory, and the limits of gender and understanding. With a mixture of sly humor, deep empathy, and objectivity, Graham creates fiction that bears resemblance to the work of such writers as Andre Dubus, Richard Bausch and Joyce Carol Oates.”

Graham completed his master’s in fine arts at the University of Michigan. He writes fiction, literary nonfiction, and essays on literary art and craft. His work has been published in many literary journals and has received the 2005 Dana Literary Award for the Novel.

In addition to contemporary literature, Graham’s interests include studies in the literary essay, gender and sexuality, and food writing. He teaches introductory, advanced and independent studies in fiction and literary nonfiction, studies in the essay, methods of critical analysis, first-year writing and, occasionally, courses in American literature. He also regularly makes use of St. Lawrence’s Community-Based Learning (CBL) program in his courses.