Panelist - Allan Gurganus

Allan Gurganus

ALLAN GURGANUS was born in eastern North Carolina where his family has been shabby-genteel for four generations. After going to art school, serving in the Navy during the Vietnam war, after teaching at Stanford, Sarah Lawrence and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Gurganus returned to his native state. He is co-founder of Writers Against Jesse Helms. Gurganus now lives and gardens in a village of five thousand souls.

Gurganus's books include Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, (Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters), White People, (Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Southern Book Prize), Plays Well With Others (Lambda Literary Award Finalist). The CBS version of "Widow", starring Donald Sutherland and Cecily Tyson, won four Emmies. Allan Gurganus's newest work of fiction is The Practical Heart:Four Novellas, published in October by Knopf. His short stories are seen in the most recent "Norton Anthology of American Short Fiction," "Best American Stories," and "The O'Henry Collection." His next novel, the second in The Falls Trilogy that commenced with "Widow", is "The Erotic History of a Southern Baptist Church".

Web Site:
www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/16/home/gurganus.html

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