Literary Reading By Robert Olen Butler (EVT 77)

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler examined America through the voices of Vietnamese postwar immigrants. In his new book of stories, Had a Good Time, he again explores America, this time from an unlikely and fascinating place—the backs of postcards from a bygone era. For years Butler has collected postcards from the early 20th century—not so much for the pictures but for the messages from people long since passed away.

Author of 12 books of fiction, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, The Paris Review, Harper's, Zoetrope, and GQ, among others, and have also been included in four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories and seven annual editions of New Stories from the South. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a National Magazine Award for Fiction. He currently directs the Creative Writing Program at Florida State University.

This reading is co-sponsored by Stanford's Creative Writing Department.