2009
August 11
Pub date for The Confessions of Edward Day
August 11
RADIO: Diane Rehm Show, Washington, DC
August 22
Reading and panel at Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland
GRANTA Panel on the short story: 5:00 P.M.
Reading: 8:30 P.M.
September 13
Reading at The Chapel of Our Lady, Cold Spring, NY
Time: 4:00 P.M.
September 15
Reading for Odyssey Bookstore at Mount Holyoke College, So. Hadley, Ma.
Time: 7:00 P.M.
October 22
Reading at Colony Club, NYC
Time: Noon
October 27
Conversation with David Wroblewski and Richard Russo
Hooker Auditorium, Mount Holyoke College, So. Hadley, Ma.
Time: 7:00 P.M.
2010
Valerie Martin is Louisiana Writer of the Year:
November 5th
Reading: Loyola University, New Orleans
Time: TBA
November 6th/Award Ceremony: Louisiana Center for the Book, Baton Rouge,
Time: 10:00 A.M.
Press Release:
June 8, 2010
Contact
Paulita Chartier
Communications Director
State Library of Louisiana
225-342-9713
pchartier@slol.lib.la.us
NOVELIST VALERIE MARTIN HONORED
WITH LOUISIANA WRITER AWARD
Baton Rouge, La. - Award-winning author Valerie Martin has been named recipient of the prestigious Louisiana Writer Award for 2010. She is being honored by the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana for her extraordinary contributions to the state's literary heritage that is exemplified by her body of work. The State Library of Louisiana will host a special award ceremony this fall to celebrate both Martin and her extraordinary work.
"One of the things that Louisiana does best is to create and nurture exceptional talent in the area of arts and culture," said State Librarian Rebecca Hamilton. "As a result, this state enjoys a rich cultural and literary heritage. Valerie Martin has drawn on her life experiences as a New Orleans native, with six of her nine novels set, in whole or in part, in Louisiana. In addition, all of her short story collections contain stories set in New Orleans," continued Hamilton.
The Louisiana Writer Award is given periodically to recognize outstanding contributions to the literary and intellectual life of Louisiana. Past recipients include novelist and short story writer Tim Gautreaux, children's author William Joyce, poets Yusef Komunyakaa and William Jay Smith; historian Carl A. Brasseaux; novelists James Lee Burke, Ernest J. Gaines, Shirley Ann Grau and Elmore Leonard; and scholar Lewis P. Simpson.
"Valerie, through her enormous talent and dedication to her craft, has contributed significantly to Louisiana's rich literary legacy. We are proud to honor her with the Louisiana Writer Award," said Hamilton.
Martin is the author of nine novels, three collections of short stories, and a biography of St. Francis of Assisi. In 1990, her novel Mary Reilly, which purports to be the diary of Dr. Jekyll's housemaid, won the Kafka prize, was translated into 16 languages and was the subject of a film directed by Stephen Frears. Her novel Property, narrated by another voice from the past, that of a woman slave-owner in antebellum New Orleans, won Britain's Orange Prize, was short-listed for France's Prix Femina Etranger, and placed on the long list for Ireland's Impac award.
Starting college at the University of New Orleans, Martin began to write and to read the novels that would provide her with the thematic material that has sustained her through the years. She then attended graduate school at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, receiving an MFA in Creative Writing in 1974. Her first novel, Set in Motion, was published in 1978. Other novels and collections of short stories followed.
Martin's teaching career took her to various institutions: the University of New Mexico at Las Cruces, the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, the University of New Orleans, Mt. Holyoke College, the University of Massachusetts, Sarah Lawrence College and in the fall of 2009, after a twenty year absence, back to Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Between 1994 and 1997 she lived in Italy, the setting of her novel Italian Fever and a biography, Salvation; Scenes from the life of St. Francis.
For the past twelve years, Martin has lived in upstate New York with her partner, John Cullen. She has one daughter, Adrienne Martin, who is a professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.
December 4
Reading at Ohio State University Conference, Columbus: "Chekhov on Stage and Page," Grand Lounge, Faculty club,
Time: 5 p.m.
2011
January 30-Feb. 18
Writer-in-Residence at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
Reading, February 3
Alumnae House
Time: TBA
March 20-25
Zale-Kimmerling Writer-in-Residence at Tulane Unviersity, New Orleans
Reading, March 21
Time: 7:30
