PRESS RELEASE
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS
COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS AND COMMUNICATION
September 16, 2011
CONTACT: Jeanetta Darley (501) 327-7482; jeanetta@fcl.org
THREE UCA WRITING FACULTY MEMBERS TO READ FROM POSTHUMOUS NOVEL
By Ariel Moore
UCA Department of Writing
CONWAY — Terry Wright, Mark Spitzer and Tim Thornes, professors with the Department of Writing at the University of Central Arkansas, will read from Surreal Killer at the Faulkner County Library on Thursday, Oct. 6, at 7 p.m.
The book by the late Roy Trask, aka David Arnott, was published by the new local small press Shakespeare & Company, Toad Suck, under the direction of Spitzer. It features cover art by Wright and includes an afterword by Thornes, who described Surreal Killer as “Little Miss Sunshine meets Schindler’s List.”
“Ideally, it might be best to hear the author read, but, sadly, with his passing, such is not to be,” Wright said. “Instead, three voices will interpret different sections of the book.”
Thornes added, “Surreal Killer is the last work of fiction by a person who worked in a huge range of creative genre. This event will celebrate a creative life well lived and cut too short.”
Of the book, Dr. Davis Schneiderman, chair of the English Department at Lake Forest College in Illinois, said: “Take Jean Genet, Kathy Acker, William S. Burroughs on a camping trip to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, and you approach the mad mélange of ire, polemic, and farce Roy Trask has cooked up in the meth lab of Surreal Killer. This is super-terrorist prose for a post-9/11 world and a pre-zombie apocalypse universe. Get thee to a funnery… if you can stomach the aftershocks.”
The event is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served. The reading is co-sponsored by the 2011 Arkansas Philological Association Conference. A question and answer session and book signing will follow the reading, and copies of Surreal Killer will be available for purchase.
The Faulkner County Library is located at 1900 Tyler Street in Conway. For more information, contact Jeanetta Darley at (501) 327-7482 or jeanetta@fcl.org.
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