Join us for an engaging evening about America's master storyteller. William Sidney Porter—better known as O. Henry—was one of the world’s great storytellers. A master of cunning plots and a gifted humorist, he is best known today for his beloved tale “The Gift of the Magi.” But O. Henry’s palette of moods and methods was as expansive as his exuberant imagination.
Author Ben Yagoda will be in conversation with author and editor Jim Dodson. Yagoda has written a Library of America volume of O. Henry's works that offers a fresh look at the full range of his literary genius. Here are 101 stories, including such favorites as “The Ransom of Red Chief,” “The Last of the Troubadours,” and “The Cop and the Anthem,” alongside lesser-known and previously uncollected stories, including three early tales published here for the first time. With full annotation and a newly researched chronology of Porter’s life and career, this is a definitive edition for modern readers of a major American writer.
Ben Yagoda, editor, is the author or editor of thirteen books, including The B-Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and Rebirth of the Great American Song; About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made. His work has been published in The American Scholar, The Atlantic, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Slate, and many other publications. A Guggenheim Fellow, he is Professor Emeritus of English and Journalism at the University of Delaware.
Jim Dodson is the founding editor of O.Henry Magazine and editor of award-winning PineStraw Magazine in Southern Pines, North Carolina. His critically-acclaimed and bestselling books include Final Rounds, Faithful Travelers, The Dewsweepers, Beautiful Madness, The Road to Somewhere, A Golfer’s Life (with Arnold Palmer), and Ben Hogan – An American Life, which won the Herbert Warren Wind/USGA International Book Award. In 2008, he was a featured commentator in the award-winning HBO documentary “Back Nine at Cherry Hills.”
This Event is co-sponsored by Greensboro Public Library, Greensboro History Museum and Scuppernong Books. For more information contact Glenn Perkins .
