[NEohioPAL]OC alum & Pulitzer winner to do book-signing

[Betty.Gabrielli at oberlin.edu]

Lorain Native Writes About His Passion for Books


CLEVELAND, Ohio, October 16, 2003 -- In his exuberant memoir, AN OPEN BOOK=20
(W. W. Norton; October 2003), Michael Dirda - the Pulitzer Prize-winning=20
literary journalist - re-creates his boyhood in rust belt Ohio, first in=20
the working-class town of Lorain, then at Oberlin College.=A0 In addition =
to=20
writing about his colorful family and friends, Dirda celebrates the great=20
writers and fictional characters he met in the branch libraries of this=20
gritty factory town, from the Count of Monte Cristo to the Green Lantern,=20
and from Hamlet to Fanny Hill. The result is a book that pays tribute to=20
both to small-town America - with its summer jobs, school fights,=20
sweepstakes contests and first loves - and the daydreams that fuel al
l children?s identities.=A0=A0=A0

Michael Dirda - recipient of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished=20
criticism - has been a writer and senior editor for The Washington Post=20
Book World for over twenty-five years. He writes a Sunday column about=20
books, either reviewing new works or reflecting on neglected masterpieces=20
and innovative writing of all sorts.=A0 Some of these columns are gathered =
in=20
READINGS: Essays and Literary Entertainments (W. W. Norton; October 2003;=20
paperback). Dirda also conducts a popular weekly online question-and-answer =

program at http://www.washingtonpost.com: ?Dirda on Books.?


Michael Dirda was born in 1948 in the small, working-class Ohio town of=20
Lorain. He graduated from Oberlin College with Highest Honors in English in =

1970, and then received a Fulbright grant to France, where he taught in=20
Marseille. Between 1971-1975 he attended graduate school at Cornell=20
University, specializing in medieval studies and European romanticism. He=20
received an M.A. (1975
) and a Ph.D (1977) in comparative literature, with a dissertation on the=20
French writer Stendhal as an autobiographer. He is married, with three=20
sons, and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Meet Michael Dirda when he visits the Borders Books and Music store in=20
Westlake for a book signing on Friday, October 24 at 7pm. Borders is=20
located in The Promenade at 30121 Detroit Road. The store?s phone number is =

440-892-7667. This event is free and open to the public.

Betty Gabrielli
 Staff member: OC News Services
 Writer: Oberlin Online

 Office of College Relations
 145 W. Lorain St.
 Oberlin, Ohio 44074
 440-775-8624
 440-775-6575 fax

 "If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in
 bed with a mosquito." WATER