[Yale-readings] THIS THURSDAY, 8:00: journalist Ted Conover

[Kuhl, Nancy]

FALL 2008 EVENT
FRANCIS CONVERSATIONS WITH WRITERS AND EDITORS

TED CONOVER

America's Foremost Participatory Journalist
8:00 p.m., Thursday, October 23
Branford Common Room, 74 High St.

    Ted Conover is in the vanguard of "participatory journalism"--the genre in which a writer doesn't just observe but actually engages, usually undercover, in the activity he's reporting. Conover's work has been called "brave, "devastating," and "freakin' brilliant."

    "Living in other people's shoes" is how Conover describes it. "I write about real people," he says, "often by living their lives for a while--visiting their lives, you might say. Trying them on for size. Though their are easier ways to make a living, I suppose, none strike me as a fraction so interesting."

    Conover has jumped freight trains with hoboes (Rolling Nowhere, 1984) and dodged spotter planes with illegal Mexican migrants (Coyotes, 1987). He is currently working on a book about five roads in five countries.

    To research his best-known book, Newjack (2000), Conover spent a year working undercover as a guard in Sing Sing Prison. Inmates spat on him, punched him in the head, and ultimately provided the material for a book that won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

    After an introduction by Francis Writer-in-Residence Anne Fadiman, Ted Conover will read, discuss, and answer questions about a sampling of his writing. The Poynter Fellowship has provided additional support for this journalism event.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Conover 1.jpg
Type: image/pjpeg
Size: 17727 bytes
Desc: Conover 1.jpg
Url : http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/yale-readings/attachments/20081021/9d1351e8/attachment.bin