[NEohioPAL] FIRST MONDAYS FEATURES AWARD-WINNING NOVELIST DAN CHAON ON MONDAY, APRIL 4 at THE ALCAZAR

[Jean Seitter Cummins]

FIRST MONDAYS FEATURES AWARD-WINNING NOVELIST DAN CHAON ON MONDAY, APRIL 4
at THE ALCAZAR

On Monday, April 4, at 7 p.m., FIRST MONDAYS welcomes a local hero to The
Alcazar. Award-winning novelist Dan Chaon whose most recent book  Await Your
Reply was named one of the ten best books of the year by Publisher's Weekly,
Entertainment Weekly, Janet Maslin of The New York Times, and Laura Miller
of salon.com, lives in Cleveland Heights.

Dan is also the author of the short story collections Fitting Ends and Among
the Missing, which was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award, and the
novel You Remind Me of Me. His fiction has appeared in many journals and
anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and
The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine
Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in
Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Dan, who is  the Pauline Delaney Professor of Creative Writing and
Literature at Oberlin, has ideas about the teaching of fiction that are
almost as engaging as his books.  “Narrative is a way of thinking about the
world,“  he was quoted in the Oberlin Online News. “ And it’s a complex way
of thinking about the world,” he assures us, “it’s valuable to be able to
think in those terms, as well as scientific terms, or analytic terms or
anything else.

Dan expects to read something from his upcoming collection, Stay Awake,
which is due out in Spring of 2012. He’ll bring two of his senior creative
writing students with him.  Abbey Chung and Pat Bernhard, who have already
garnered substantial resumes, will also read their work.

The landmark Alcazar is located at 2450 Derbyshire, just at the top of Cedar
Hill in the Cedar-Fairmount neighborhood. Admission is $5 at the door.
Parking is available on the street and in the metered double decker parking
structure just off Cedar at Surrey. Call (216) 321-5400 on the day of the
program for access to the handicapped parking and elevator entrance.