Noted Author Harlan Ellison to Speak at Centenary March 4
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (2/97)
Contact Dr. Earle Labor, George A. Wilson Professor of American Literature, 318-869-5254, or
Lynn Stewart or Amy Boltinghouse, Centenary News Service, 318-869-5120 or 318-869-5709
SHREVEPORT, LA--Celebrated author Harlan Ellison is scheduled to speak at Centenary College twice on Tuesday, March 4.
Ellison will address a Centenary convocation at 11 a.m. in Kilpatrick Auditorium and will also be the guest of honor at "An Evening with Harlan Ellison," which will be hosted by Professor Mark Fisch, acting chair and associate professor of sociology, and student members of Alpha Kappa Delta National Sociology Honor Society. The presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Hurley School of Music Auditorium.
Ellison's visit is sponsored by the Centenary Convocations Committee, and both presentations are free and open to the public.
Praised by the Washington Post as "one of the great living American short story writers" and by Tom Snyder of the NBC Tomorrow as "an amazing talent," Ellison has written or edited close to 70 books and 1,700 shorter works. He has also created more than a score of teleplays and films.
His works have won more awards than those of any other living fantasist: for example, the Hugo Award (eight times), the Nebula Award (three times), the Bram Stoker Award (five times, including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966), the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America (twice), the George Melies Fantasy Film Award (twice), and the Silver Pen for Journalism by P.E.N., the international writers' union (for his columns in the L.A. Weekly, titled "An Edge in My Voice," in defense of the First Amendment). He is also the only author in Hollywood to receive the Writers' Guild of America Award for the Most Outstanding Teleplay four times.
Ellison has traveled with such groups as The Rolling Stones, and his Spider Kiss has been praised as "the finest novel about the world of rock in the past quarter century."
He is currently in his fourth season as conceptual consultant for the popular syndicated series Babylon 5. He also plays the voice of the insane god-computer AM on the recently released CD Rom computer game I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (based on his now-classic story by that title).
Ellison's story "Shatterday" was not only featured on the new series of the Twilight Zone but has also been anthologized in LIT: Literature for Critical Analysis, the current textbook for all first-year Centenary students, published by Harper Collins and edited by Professors Wilfred Guerin of LSUS, Earle Labor and Lee Morgan of Centenary, Michael Hall of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Barry Nass of Hofstra University (Hall, Nass and Guerin, have all taught previously at Centenary).
Selected titles of Ellison's books will be available at a book-signing following each performance.
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