Bestselling Author Erik Larson is 2005 Johnston Lecturer

Erik Larson

Erik Larson, author of the international bestseller Isaac’s Storm, will deliver the 2005 Johnston Lecture, “Breathing Life into the Dead:  Making History Come Alive on the Page” this Thursday, April 21, at 4:00 p.m. in Gerlinger Alumni Lounge on the UO Campus.  A question-and-answer session and book signing will follow.

Larson, a New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award nominee,

is the author of four nonfiction books, including Isaac’s Storm, which tells the story of the powerful hurricane that hit  Galveston, Texas in 1900.  His most recent book, The Devil  in the White City, uncovers a murder spree that occurred amidst  the “greatest fair in American history,” the 1893 Chicago  World’s Fair. Kirkus Reviews called the book, a nominee  for the National Book Award in 2003, “a gripping drama captured  with a reporter’s nose for a good story and a novelist’s  flair for telling it.”

 Larson previously worked as a feature writer for The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine and still contributes to both.  He has written articles for The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s.  Larson has taught nonfiction writing at San Francisco State, and the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars as well as the University of Oregon.

In addition to delivering the Johnston Lecture, Larson will spend three days on campus leading a “Writing About” workshop for the  literary nonfiction master’s program at the School of Journalism  and Communication.

The event, funded through an endowment from the Richard W. Johnston Memorial Project, is free and open to the  public. For more information, contact Libby Ramdass at (541) 346-3819.