Tony Barnstone and Mary Troy, two authors whose books were recently published by UMKC’s BkMk Press, will read from their works at The Writers Place on Wed., June 15, 2011, at 7:00 p.m.
Barnstone’s book, Tongue of War: from Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki, just received the Poets’ Prize, a $3,000 award given annually by a committee of 20 nationally prominent poets. The book also won the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, selected by B.H. Fairchild. A teacher at Whittier College in Whittier, California, Barnstone has written numerous books and is a noted translator of Asian poetry.
Tongue of War is based on 14 years of historical research and is written in the voices of individuals from all sides of World War II’s Pacific theater. “Tony Barnstone has revealed humankind’s capacity both for evil and for redemption with a power that few writers have ever achieved,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler.
Troy’s novel Beauties has also received numerous honors, including the award for literary fiction by USABookNews.com and the No. 3 ranking on the fiction bestseller list for Small Press Distribution (March/April.) The book is also a current finalist for ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year in literary fiction.
Troy, who is the author of three story collections, has been honored the Nelson Algren Award for fiction from the Chicago Tribune and the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award for her book Cookie Lily.
Troy directs the M.F.A. program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and edits Natural Bridge magazine.
A review of Beauties in NewPages.com says, “Food is the main character in this book,” in which two St. Louis cousins handle “all the drama life in an urban café can provide,” including confrontations with the challenges of disability, adoption, lawsuits, and the Senior Ms. St. Louis Metropolitan Area Beauty Pagent.
Cosponsors of the two readings include The Writers Place and the following UMKC programs: the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing and Media Arts, the Mark Twain Writers Workshop, BkMk Press at New Letters, and the Bernardin-Haskell Lecture Fund at in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Barnstone and Troy will also lecture at the Mark Twain Writers Workshop on June 15 and 16, 2011 at 9:30 a.m., sponsored by New Letters.
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