By Jessica Lemp
To kick off its third year, the English Department’s Great Writers, Great Readings series invited Pulitzer Prize winning author, John Mcphee to speak on Oct. 9.
The Great Writers, Great Readings series has played host to such artists as Pulitzer Prize winners Donald Margulies and Edward P. Jones and National Book Award winner and poet Jean Valentine, as well as other notable authors and poets.
John McPhee is father to the University’s own Professor Martha McPhee of the Creative Writing Program and is the author of 27 nonfiction works. He has been a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine since 1965 and one of his books, Annals of the Former World, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999.
McPhee read three excerpts from his most recent book, Uncommon Carriers, which he described as “a book about people who work in freight transportation. They drive trucks, they drive towboats up Midwestern rivers, they run UPS airplanes and they work on ships and they engineer and conduct a coal train.”
His first reading discussed his adventures with a truck driver as he crossed the country with hazardous materials in tow. In his second excerpt he took his audience on discussed a voyage along the Illinois River on a towboat pulling 15 barges. His final reading described a trip in the Midwest on a freight train measuring a mile and a half long and pulling over 18,000 tons of coal.
While the experts were based on ordinary topics, students in attendance said they were surprisingly captivated. The material focused more on the colorful characters who work in the freight industry and the perils of their jobs, rather than on the technical aspects of each field, they said. The readings were even comedic at times, sparking audible laughter from the audience.
“His reading involved a lot more comedy than I normally expect of nonfiction,” Kenny Porpora, a junior journalism major, said.
What sets McPhee apart from his contemporaries is his choice of subject matter. “A lot of the things I pick are stories that no one else will do or would like to do,” he said.
His writing usually focuses on topics that are not well publicized and yet possess a unique charm.
“I’m always looking for something new and recent,” McPhee said. “What I’m interested in is looking at something with a fresh eye and passing on what I learned to other people.”
The Great Writer’s, Great Readings series will next play host to former New York State Poet Laureate Sharon Olds on Nov. 29 in the Cultural Center Theater.
