WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thanks, Tyler.

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That was really nice.

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Can you hear me?

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Yeah?

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You made the basketball
joke, so I don't need to.

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Which is good because I'm
not a very funny person.

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But thank you all
for coming tonight.

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I'm not surprised to see
such a big crowd here.

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This is our final prose
series event of the year.

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Thanks for coming out to
all the events this year.

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And thanks especially
to the Poetry

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Center for being so generous,
and hosting some prose.

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Not too grudgingly,
we're allowed some here.

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I also want to give gratitude
to Professor Muñoz who raised

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funds for the series this year.

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And to Alison Deming who is
coordinating next year's prose

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series, and has already
arranged to bring

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Phillip Lopate and Erik Reece.

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So that'll be in the fall.

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Both of them?

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Yeah.

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So we look forward to that.

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Tonight is such a special night.

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A reading by Elizabeth
Evans, whose newest novel

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As Good as Dead,
published by Bloomsbury,

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is hot off the press.

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Her five previous books
include The Blue Hour,

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Suicide's Girlfriend,
and Carter Clay.

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Her awards include the
Iowa Author Award for 2010,

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a National Endowment
for the Arts Fellowship,

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the James Michener fellowship,
a Lila Wallace award,

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and the Four Corners award.

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And she's been a fellow at
many foundations including

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Hawthornden International
Writer's Retreat, Yaddo,

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and McDowell.

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A longtime professor in the
program of creative writing

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here at the University of
Arizona, featured in the novel

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In Choice Bits, Elizabeth
Evans makes her home in Tucson.

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And we're really lucky
to have her in Tucson.

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Recently in a cool feature
that a literary journal runs

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in which authors
interview themselves,

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Elizabeth Evans recently
asked Elizabeth Evans.

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"You--" This is
Elizabeth Evans speaking.

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"You struck the supposedly
galvanizing Wonder

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Woman pose for at least
the requisite two minutes.

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You're writing with your
favorite fountain pen.

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Also you're making up
the questions here.

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What's with the racing heart?"

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And Elizabeth Evans
answered herself,

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"I'm so much more comfortable
with writing fiction,

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than writing about my fiction."

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It's so humble, and so
typically you, to say that.

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Even an interview with yourself,
you would say not me, no.

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Other writers, luckily, are
very comfortable writing

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about Elizabeth Evans'
fiction, and it's no wonder.

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Jean Thompson has said of the
new novel we hear from tonight,

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"As Good as Dead is a portrait
of the artist as a young woman,

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with all her passionate
hopes and attachments.

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And the reckoning she must make
with that self in later years.

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Elizabeth Evans is a graceful
and intelligent writer,

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who never makes a false step.

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As well as a first rate Explorer
of secrets, and secret lives."

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The writer Bharati
Mukherjee notes

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that "Elizabeth Evans is
a masterful storyteller,

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and As Good as Dead,
simultaneously funny, menacing,

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and wise, is her
finest novel to date.

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Charlotte, the fearless and
lovable flawed narrator,

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will find a permanent place
in American literature."

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Ann Cummins calls
As Good as Dead

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"addictive," adding that it
offers "a clear eyed guide

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into the world of tunnel
visioned writers and scholars."

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We don't know anything about
that in this room, of course.

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I think As Good as Dead
is as funny as it is sad,

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and it gets to the heart
of what reading is for.

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Why we're all here tonight.

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To change us and
make us try harder.

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Elizabeth Evans is
a true storyteller

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with a gorgeous
and startling gift.

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And she really is a
kind of Wonder Woman,

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the very image of an elegant
warrior in service of books.

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Please join me in welcoming
an important American author

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tonight, Elizabeth Evans.

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[APPLAUSE]