This event was originally posted on the Gramercy Books website
Join novelist and essayist Michelle Herman, in conversation with leading story scientist and author Angus Fletcher, to learn more about her most recent novel, Close-Up.
Registration for this free in-store event is on Eventbrite. Proof of full vaccination is required to attend, and masks are encouraged. Registration closes at 6pm the day of the event.
Ohio State’s Creative Writing Program and English Department are Gramercy's Community Partners for this author evening.
In her captivating novel, Close-Up, Michelle Herman artfully reveals how the lives of a successful young magician and his father, a famous novelist, intertwine with the lives of an aspiring poet, her mother, and the poet’s mentor. In this robust, expansive novel, we follow Jacob, Martin, Caroline, Jeanie, and Jill as they experience rifts and reconciliations, struggling to make sense of themselves and each other. This is a family story only Michelle Herman could write: of missed connections, old grievances, loneliness, longing, and redemption.
Michelle Herman is the author of three previous novels—Missing, Dog, and Devotion—and the novella collection A New and Glorious Life, as well as three essay collections—The Middle of Everything, Stories We Tell Ourselves (longlisted for the 2014 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay), and Like A Song. She has also authored a book for children, A Girl’s Guide to Life. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in a wide range of periodicals, from American Scholar and O, the Oprah Magazine to Creative Nonfiction and The Southern Review. She also writes a weekly column Care and Feeding, for Slate. She has been recognized with individual artist’s fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council and the Greater Columbus Arts Council, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a grant from the Copernicus Foundation. Close-Up won the Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence. Herman has taught creative writing at Ohio State University since 1988 and was a founder of its MFA program in Creative Writing.
Angus Fletcher is a professor of story science at Ohio State’s Project Narrative, the world’s leading academic think-tank for the study of stories. He has dual degrees in neuroscience and literature, received his PhD from Yale, taught Shakespeare at Stanford, and has published two books and dozens of peer-reviewed academic articles on the scientific workings of novels, poetry, film, and theater. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has done story-consulting for projects for Sony, Disney, the BBC, Amazon, PBS, and Universal, and is the author/presenter of the Audible/Great Courses Guide to Screenwriting. He is also the author of Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature.
