News Release| One Campus, One Book; Cal State L.A.
Media Advisory
Award-winning novelist Brando Skyhorse
to discuss his journey as a writer
Author of ‘The Madonnas of Echo Park’ at Cal State L.A. May 8
Los Angeles, CA -- As part of Cal State L.A.’s One Campus, One Book (OCOB) initiative, award-winning author Brando Skyhorse will read from and discuss his national bestseller, The Madonnas of Echo Park, on Wednesday, May 8, at 4:30 p.m., in the Golden Eagle Ballroom on the CSULA campus.
The University’s One Campus, One Book program—an initiative designed to encourage the campus community to read one book collectively—this year selected Brando Skyhorse’s The Madonnas of Echo Park.
In the book, Skyhorse draws from his childhood memories to tell stories of a housecleaner, a bus driver, former gang members, single mothers, and college graduates, whose lives intersect after a drive-by shooting set in the Echo Park community of Los Angeles.
Maria Karafilis, OCOB Committee member and professor of English at CSULA, said, “This book was chosen as the 2012-13 One Campus, One Book selection because, from the first line on, Skyhorse’s fluid and deft prose invites us into a world that resonates particularly with those living in East L.A. communities, and more universally, with anyone who has felt dislocation, alienation, love, loss, and the desire to connect.”
The author received the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for this debut novel. Born and raised in Echo Park, Skyhorse is a graduate of Stanford University.
During the lecture, Skyhorse will discuss his journey as a writer, from his childhood home in Echo Park, to the MFA Writers’ Workshop program at UC Irvine, to New York City’s publishing industry. There will also be a preview of his memoir slated for publication in spring 2014.
For more information, go to http://calstatela.libguides.com/OCOB or contact Christina Sheldon, instruction and reference librarian, at (323) 343-4824.
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Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 225,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six Colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to the Honors College for high-achieving students. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu
