Guest author series brings Ed McClanahan to campus

Through the guest author reading series, one of the most prolific authors of our time is coming to campus Oct. 14 at 1 p.m. Ed McClanahan’s writing has been hailed as “a triumph of humor, wisdom, and language.”

McClanahan will be reading from his most recent book release, “O the Clear Moment.” Ken Sanders of Ken Sanders Rare Books in Salt Lake City says McClanahan’s latest book contains “stories that are quirky, lyrical, and hilarious, all told in the inimitable voice of one of this generation’s best Southern chroniclers of American life.”
UVU Professor Lee Ann Mortensen, who also admires his work, explains, “He is an important author who has been writing for decades. … At times when his writing is really working well, it’s fast — you don’t know what word is coming next.”

Sanders describes McClanahan’s place in literary history as “an uncommon link between the 1960s California counterculture experience and a rural American lifestyle,” suggesting that McClanahan is “part of a small group of writers whose works spanned both the end of the Beat movement and the birth of the new American counterculture.”

McClanahan’s work has also appeared in many magazines, including Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Playboy, and twice won Playboy‘s Best Nonfiction award. He has been awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, two Yaddo Fellowships, and an Al Smith Fellowship.