Noted author Steve Erickson will be in town for the Syracuse International Film Festival and will offer readings from his novel “Zeroville” (Empire Editions, 2007) and from a shorter piece concerning July 4, 1826, which was published earlier this year in Greil Marcus’ “New Literary History of America.”
The event on Thursday, Oct. 14, at 5 p.m., takes place in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons on the first floor of Syracuse University’s Bird Library. The event is free and open to the public. “Zeroville,” his novel exploring upheaval in the film world during the 1970s, was named a best novel for 2007 by Washington Post BookWorld and Los Angeles Magazine.
Erikson is the author of additional novels, including “Amnesiascope” (Henry Holt & Co., 1997), “The Sea Came in at Midnight (Quartet Books, 1999) and “Our Ecstatic Days” (First Edition, 2005). He also has written two books about American politics and popular culture, “Leap Year” (Avon Books, 1991) and “American Nomad” (Henry Holt & Co., 1997). Over the years he has written for Esquire, Rolling Stone, Bookforum, Frieze, Conjunctions, Salon, the L.A. Weekly, the New York Times Magazine and other publications and journals. His work has been widely anthologized. Currently, he is the film critic for Los Angeles Magazine and editor of the literary journal Black Clock, which is published by the California Institute of the Arts, where he teaches in the M.F.A. Writing Program. He has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and in 2007 was awarded a fellowship by the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2010, he was nominated for the National Magazine Award for his film criticism and was the recipient of one of seven awards in literature given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
This event is sponsored by Syracuse Library Associates, a society devoted to the enrichment of the Syracuse University Library and the greater Syracuse community. The society is supported by members who share an interest in books, learning and the preservation of knowledge.
Free event parking is available at Booth Garage, on the corner of Waverly and Comstock avenues, one block from Bird Library. For more information, visit http://library.syr.edu/about/make_gift/Library_Associates/events.php.
