UMatters

[The following was submitted by UMKC’s New Letters.]

On Wednesday, April 27, 2011, best-selling novelist Arthur Phillips, whose books include Prague, The Egyptologist, Angelica, and The Song is You, will discuss his novel, The Tragedy of Arthur, with public radio host, Angela Elam at the Kansas City Public Library – Central Branch at 14 West 10th Street in downtown Kansas City.

The interview, scheduled for 6:30 p.m., will take place will be recorded in front of an audience for future broadcast on the nationally distributed public radio program, New Letters on the Air.

Five-time Jeopardy! champion, jazz musician, and former speech writer, Arthur Phillips is known for cerebral twists within his novels, and his new faux memoir is no exception. The Tragedy of Arthur is a tale of a character named Arthur Phillips who struggles with his con-artist father. Arthur learns of a previously undiscovered five-act Shakespeare play that his father had kept secret until the near end of his life. As a writer, Phillips plays with truth, fiction and literary betrayal in his novel, The Tragedy of Arthur.

Arthur Phillips appears as part of the Writers at Work series, organized by Kansas City novelist Whitney Terrell and co-sponsored by the University of Missouri-Kansas City English Department and the Writers at Work Round Table. Reserve a seat with the Kansas City Public Library Central Branch at their website. There is a reception at 6:00 p.m. before the recording of the public interview.

New Letters on the Air, which airs locally on KCUR 89.3 FM on Sunday mornings at 6:00 a.m., is the radio show companion to New Letters magazine, and has been broadcasting literary readings and interviews since 1977. An independent production of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, New Letters on the Air is distributed through the Public Radio Satellite System and the Public Radio Exchange, and can be heard on public radio stations across the country.