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Novelist, Memoirist Continues Reading Series

Each event of the Writer's Workshop Reading Series is free and open to the public.

Each event of the Writer's Workshop Reading Series is free and open to the public.

OMAHA – Novelist and memoirist Brando Skyhorse is featured next in the University of Nebraska at Omaha's (UNO) 2015 Writer’s Workshop Reading Series. His reading is set for Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 7:30 p.m., in the Art Gallery of the UNO Weber Fine Arts Building.

The Writer’s Workshop Reading Series will bring five authors to campus this fall semester. Each event is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

Brando SkyhorseSkyhorse’s first novel, "The Madonnas of Echo Park", won the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award and the Sue Kaufman Award for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

His 2014 memoir, "Take This Man" was named one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Nonfiction Books of 2014.

Skyhorse’s memoir, like his novel, takes place largely in the 1980s, and the primarily Latino and Southeast Asian immigrant neighborhood of Echo Park, California. He recounts his childhood as “the American Indian son of an incarcerated political activist,” which is what his mother told him he was.

But at 13, Skyhorse began to unravel his mother’s story. They weren't Native American; they were Mexican, and the prisoner she urged him to call Dad was not his father. After years of living with a series of five stepfathers, Skyhorse began to gather details about the Mexican immigrant who was his birth father.

A Los Angeles Times review says the book does "most everything a good memoir should: evoke a time and a place, shape a life without contorting it and give some idea of how that life yielded the author we meet today.”

Skyhorse is currently a professor at Connecticut's Wesleyan University. While on the UNO campus, he will conduct a special seminar for Thompson Learning Community students.

Remaining 2015 Writer’s Workshop Reading Series Dates:

  • Nov. 11, 7:30 p.m. – Brando Skyhorse, novelist & memoirist
  • Dec. 2, 7:30 p.m. – Lisa Sandlin, fiction writer

For media requests, please contact:

Sam Petto, UNO Media Relations Coordinator
unonews@unomaha.edu
402.554.2704

or

Charley Reed, UNO Associate Director of Media Relations
unonews@unomaha.edu
402.554.2129

Related Links

Writers Set for Youth Reading Series

Learn More About the Writer's Workshop

MFA in Writing Program Celebrates 10th Anniversary

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Located in one of America’s best cities to live, work and learn, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) is Nebraska’s premier metropolitan university. With more than 15,000 students enrolled in 200-plus programs of study, UNO is recognized nationally for its online education, graduate education, military friendliness and community engagement efforts. Founded in 1908, UNO has served learners of all backgrounds for more than 100 years and is dedicated to another century of excellence both in the classroom and in the community.

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