Laureate Writers Series – December 2017

Tuesday | December 5th | 7:00pm
Blue Heron Coffee House

For the December Laureate Writers Series, Toby Thompson will read from his recent creative nonfiction. The reading will be followed by a book signing and an open mic. The theme for the open mic is “family.”

Toby Thompson is the author of five books of nonfiction: Positively Main Street—Bob Dylan’s Minnesota, The ’60s Report, Riding the Rough String—Reflections on the American West, Metroliner—Passages, Washington to New York, and Saloon. He teaches creative nonfiction writing at Penn State. Thompson has written for publications as diverse as Vanity Fair, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Gray’s Sporting Journal, GQ, Men’s Journal, Sports Afield, Playboy, Outside, Big Sky Journal, Western Art & Architecture, The New York Times and The Washington Post. He lives in Cabin John, Maryland and Livingston, Montana.

The Los Angeles Times says of Positively Main Street (written about the young Bob Dylan), that the book is “Well worth the attention of anyone who has fallen under the spell of the boy from the North Country. ” Novelist and poet Jim Harrison says of Saloon, “For the first time the American drinker has his Michelin and for myself it would be unthinkable to start another journey without it.” Referring to the work in Metroliner, Tom Wolfe calls Thompson “An intrepid tripper in the Merry Prankster sense, and an urban Thoreau.” Metroliner offers a wide spectrum of pieces including profiles of Jackie Gleason, Tom Brokaw, Tom Wolfe, Carl Bernstein and Norman Mailer.

The event is co-sponsored by The Blue Heron and Winona’s Fine Arts Commission and is free and open to the public.

The Laureate Writer’s Series is sponsored by the City of Winona’s Fine Arts Commission. The City of Winona is a partner of River Arts Alliance.