1/08/99
Editor's note: A photograph of Lee K. Abbott may be downloaded from the Web at http://www.ohio.edu/news/pix/ABBOTT.JPG ATHENS, Ohio -- Award-winning fiction writer Lee K. Abbott will present a reading of his work in the Music Building Recital Hall at Ohio University on Wednesday, Jan. 20, at 8 p.m.
The event is sponsored by the English Department's Program in Creative Writing and is free and open to the public. A brief reception and book signing will immediately follow the reading.
Abbott is the author of six books. His most recent collection, "Wet Places at Noon," published in 1997, earned much critical acclaim. In The New York Times Book Review Abbott was praised by Tom Drury for "draw[ing] on our cultural standards -- our wars, our divorces, our suppressed alien crash-landings -- to create a mythology all his own."
Abbott's other books include "Living After Midnight," "Dreams of Distant Lives," "Strangers in Paradise," "Love is the Crooked Thing" and "The Heart Never Fits Its Wanting." His stories also have been published in major anthologies and publications such as "The Best American Short Stories," "The Best of the West," "Harper's Magazine," "The Atlantic Review" and "Ploughshares."
The recipient of numerous prizes, Abbott won the prestigious O. Henry Award for Fiction in 1997. He also has been honored with two Pushcart Prizes for Fiction and awarded the National Magazine Award for Fiction, the St. Lawrence Prize for Fiction and the Greater Columbus Arts Council Award for Fiction.
Abbott earned a master's degree in fine arts from the University of Arkansas and has taught at Yale University, Antioch University and Case Western Reserve University. In 1989, he joined the Department of English at Ohio State University, where he was named Exemplary Faculty Member in the College of the Humanities.
