A Novel Way of Thinking: Jane Smiley

A Novel Way of Thinking: a reading and talk about both 'how to do it' and 'how I did it.'- Jane Smiley 

To read a novel is to enter into a lengthy relationship with an author; to write a novel is to enter into a lengthy relationship with oneself. Both relationships offer surprises, difficulties, and pleasures. Jane Smiley will discuss how the process unfolds, and why she finds it endlessly alluring.

Jane Smiley has been praised as 'a diverse and masterly writer' (New York Times Book Review) and 'one of the premier novelists of her generation, possessed of a mastery of the craft and an uncompromising vision that grows more powerful with each book' (Washington Post).

A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992, and The All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton won the 1999 Spur Award for Best Novel of the West. Horse Heaven was short-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002. Smiley's latest book for adults, Private Life, was named one of the best books of 2010 by The Atlantic, Harper's, and The Washington Post. She has written four books in a YA series, called The Horses of Oak Valley Ranch, and several nonfiction books, including The Man Who Invented the Computer, and Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel.