WEBVTT

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Here I am now as Stacey
Richter, no longer as myself.

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And I'd like to
second Stacey Richter

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in saying that it's
a phenomenal pleasure

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to be introducing
Aurelie Sheehan tonight.

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She is, in addition to being
the director of the University

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of Arizona creative writing
program, the author of three

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books--

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Jack Kerouac is Pregnant, a
collection of short stories.

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The Anxiety of Everyday
Objects, a novel.

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And History Lessons for Girls,
a novel published by Viking

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this past July.

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Aurelie has received a Pushcart
Prize, a Camargo Fellowship,

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the Jack Kerouac literary award,
and an Artist Project award

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from the Arizona
Commission on the Arts.

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Her prose and poetry have
appeared in many magazines,

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including Haydens Ferry
Review and Shenandoah.

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Aurelie Sheehan's work
is that rare thing:

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a marriage of page
turning storytelling,

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with richly textured
inventive prose.

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It's tempting to linger on
each of Aurelie's sentences,

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on the surprising
images in her sentences.

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For instance, the number zero
displayed on an answering

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machine like she writes a-- it--

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[AUDIO OUT] But then it
would be impossible to gallop

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through her stories as a
whole swift tale of characters

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seeking balance and meaning,
sometimes through unbalanced

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means.

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Sheehan's characters are
idiosyncratic searchers.

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Moral beings in a chaotic land.

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And through them, Sheehan
conveys a generous view

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of the world.

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One in which girls
and women struggle

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to understand their lives
and their own crooked paths.

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Alison Glass, the heroine
of History Lesson for Girls,

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explains "There was no reason
I couldn't live this way,

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with a curved back in peace.

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Like any imperfect
but plausible thing,

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a tree growing around
a telephone wire."

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Please welcome Aurelie Sheehan.

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[APPLAUSE]

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