Award Winning Poet, Memoirist Meghan O’Rourke To Speak About Experiences As A Professional Writer

Award winning poet, writer and memoirist Meghan O’Rourke will be the keynote speaker at the English Association of Pennsylvania State University (EAPSU) conference, which will take place on October 12, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. in the Keystone Room at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania (ESU). O’Rourke will be reading from her work—her memoir and poetry. She will also be speaking about her experience writing for Slate.com., a major online magazine. The event is open to all members of the campus community and the general public at no cost.

O’Rourke is the culture editor and literary critic for Slate.com. Her writing has covered topics ranging from grief and popular culture to the works of major literary figures. She is the author of two books of poetry Once and Half life and a best-selling memoir, The Long Goodbye.

According to her website (www.meghanorourke.net), O’Rourke began her career as one of the youngest editors in the history of  The New Yorker. Since then, she has served as culture editor and literary critic for Slate as well as poetry editor and advisory editor for The Paris Review. Her essays, criticism, and poems have appeared in Slate, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, Redbook, Vogue, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, and Best American Poetry. A graduate of Yale University, she has taught at Princeton, The New School, and New York University.

“This reading is a unique opportunity to hear Meghan O’Rourke read from her work, including her bestselling, deeply moving memoir, The Long Goodbye, about her mother’s death after a long battle with cancer,” said Jan Selving, ESU assistant professor of English. “As a cultural columnist and critic for Slate.com, she reaches millions of readers, and offers a unique insight on the power of the web to direct the current conversation about literature, culture, and social norms.”

Author Joyce Carol Oates said of  The Long Goodbye, “Meghan O’Rourke has written a beautiful memoir about her loss of a truly irreplaceable mother—yes, it is sad, it is in fact heartrending, but it is many things more: courageous, inspiring, wonderfully intelligent and informed, and an intimate portrait of an American family as well.”

O’Rourke’s visit to ESU is sponsored by EAPSU and ESU’s Office of Academic Affairs, with additional support from the College of Arts and Sciences and the English department.  For more information about the visit by O’Rourke to the ESU campus, contact Selving at 570-422-3071, or at jselving@esu.edu.

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