Les Standiford, the Man Who Invented Christmas December 16, 2008

We welcome the return of Les Standiford and his newest book, The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits. As uplifting as the tale of Scrooge itself, The Man Who Invented Christmas is a fascinating social history of Dickens’ time and a touching story behind the book that transformed Dickens’ flagging career and reinvented this most celebrated holiday of the Western World. In addition to being the author of fiction and nonfiction books, including Last Train to Paradise, Meet You in Hell, Washington Burning and many notable others, Mr. Standiford is a professor of English and the director of the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami. He attended the Air Force Academy, Columbia University School of Law, and holds a B.A. in psychology from Muskingum College in Ohio and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in literature and creative writing from the University of Utah. He spent twenty years in the West, working at times for the U.S. Forest, the Utah Parks Company, and the U.S. Park Service. He is a former screenwriting fellow and graduate of the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. He is a past recipient of the Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction. Fee: Free for members and King Library members, $5 all others. Members and library members MuST show card for admission. (561 ) 805 -8562 Space is limited; reservations are required. Location : The King Library