Ohio Northern University presents American fiction writer Michael Martone

ADA – Ohio Northern University presents author Michael Martone, who will speak in the ONU Freed Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, Jan. 20, at 7 p.m.

Martone is Ohio Northern’s 2010 Committee of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (CASE) literary guest. This event is open to the public, and admission is $3.

Martone, director of the creative writing program at the University of Alabama and a native of Fort Wayne, Ind., is the author of several critically acclaimed fiction and nonfiction works. Some of Martone’s most recent books include “Not Normal,” “Illinois: Peculiar Fiction from the Flyover” and “Double-wide.”

“Michael Martone,” a memoir in contributor notes, “Unconventions,” “Writing on Writing” and “Rules of Thumb,” edited with Susan Neville, were all published recently. The University of Georgia Press published his book of essays, “The Flatness and Other Landscapes,” winner of the AWP Award for Nonfiction, in 2000. With Robin Hemley, he edited “Extreme Fiction.”

Martone is the author of five other books of short fiction: “Seeing Eye,” “Pensées: The Thoughts of Dan Quayle,” “Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitler's List,” “Safety Patrol” and “Alive and Dead in Indiana.” He has edited two collections of essays about the Midwest: “A Place of Sense: Essays in Search of the Midwest” and “Townships: Pieces of the Midwest.” His stories and essays have appeared in Harper’s, Esquire, Story, Antaeus, North American Review, Benzene, Epoch, Denver Quarterly, Iowa Review, Third Coast, Shenandoah, Bomb and other magazines.

Martone has won two Fellowships from the NEA and a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation. His stories have won awards in the Italian Americana fiction contest, the Florida Review Short Story Contest, the Story magazine Short, Short Story Contest, the Margaret Jones Fiction Prize of Black Ice Magazine, and the first World’s Best Short, Short Story Contest. His stories and essays have appeared and been cited in the “Pushcart Prize,” “The Best American Stories” and “The Best American Essays” anthologies

Published: Wed, 01/13/2010 - 3:35pm