A List
9/13/04

AUTHOR JOHN IRVING TO SPEAK AT ST. LAWRENCE

CANTON – Novelist John Irving will speak at St. Lawrence University on Saturday, 
October 9, at 8 p.m. in Gunnison Memorial Chapel; the event is open to the public, 
free of charge, but tickets are required. Tickets for St. Lawrence students, 
faculty and staff only are available at the Student Center Information Desk and 
Brewer Bookstore; beginning September 17, tickets will be available at the same 
locations for anyone from the campus or community. Tickets must be requested and 
picked up in person; they will not be mailed.
      Irving, appearing as part of both the University Writers Series and 
Laurentian Leadership Weekend, had his first novel published when he was 26.  
He has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment 
for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation; he has won an O. Henry Award, a 
National Book Award for The World According to Garp and an Oscar for Best Adapted 
Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 1992, he was inducted into the 
National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and in 2001, he was 
elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In addition to those noted 
above, his novels include A Prayer for Owen Meany, A Widow for One Year, and, 
most recently, The Fourth Hand.
      At the October 9 event, Irving will read excerpts from The Cider House 
Rules and discuss an author's role in transforming a novel into a screenplay. 
This will mark the second occasion that he has visited the St. Lawrence campus; 
in 1984, exactly 20 years ago, Irving spoke during the University arts festival, 
and read excerpts from The Cider House Rules, which was at that time a 
work-in-progress.

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