Author Jonathan Coleman visits PCPL and DPU

Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Jonathan Coleman

Author Jonathan Coleman will visit the Putnam County Public Library on Monday, Nov. 5 to read from his highly celebrated work as a non-fiction writer.

The free program will begin at 6:30 p.m. at PCPL.

Coleman will be signing and selling copies of his most recent book, for which he partnered with basketball legend Jerry West to write "West by West: My Charmed and Tormented Life."

Coleman, whose latest work has just been issued in paperback, will spend next week on the DePauw University campus as the Nancy Schaenen Visiting Scholar at the Prindle Institute for Ethics.

His visit will include a 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 7 public lecture on "The Art and Responsibility of Creative Nonfiction Writing" at the Prindle Institute. It is free and open to all.

Coleman's residency will also include visits to several DePauw classes as well as appearances at local middle schools.

His previous book, "Long Way to Go: Black and White in America," was labeled "a classic" by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Morris Dees (the 2001 commencement speaker at DePauw).

Coleman served as an adviser to President Clinton's Initiative on Race as well as an adviser on racial unity to Bill Bradley's presidential campaign.

A graduate of the University of Virginia, Coleman began his career working in London for the New Review, a literary magazine. From 1975 to 1981, he worked in book publishing, first at Alfred A. Knopf and later as a senior editor and member of the editorial board of Simon and Schuster. In 1980, in a piece about publishing, he was profiled in Time magazine as one of the best editors in the field.

From 1981-83, he worked at CBS News as a producer and a correspondent, and where he initially began to investigate the story that led to his first book, "At Mother's Request." Published in 1985, it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and made the New York Times bestseller list in both hardcover and paperback. Nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the book was the subject of a 1987 CBS miniseries in which the author made a cameo appearance.

He has written for the New York Times, Newsweek, the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and many other publications. Coleman taught advanced creative nonfiction writing at the University of Virginia from 1986-93, and has lectured at Princeton, Penn, Columbia and a number of other universities.

Coleman is currently at work on a book about Angus Cameron, a renowned book editor and 1930 graduate of DePauw, who was blacklisted in the 1950s. "What He Stood For: The Many Worlds of Angus Cameron" draws on their more than 25-year relationship.

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