Jeannette Walls, author of the memoir "The Glass Castle" will be interviewed before a live audience at 7 p.m. Nov. 5 at Lenoir-Rhyne University's Belk Centrum, 628 Seventh Ave. Place, NE. This event will be taped for later broadcast on the WFAE radio program "Charlotte Talks."
Walls will participate in a book signing from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Nov. 5 at Patrick Beaver Memorial Library. Both events are free and open to the public; tickets are not required.
There will be reserved seating for Visiting Writers Series patrons at the interview. All other seating is first-come, first-served. There is limited seating in the Belk Centrum, so those wishing to attend are encouraged to come early.
Members of the public also are invited to hear Walls speak and answer questions at 9:20 a.m. Nov. 6 in the Belk Centrum.
"The Glass Castle" tells the story of Walls' childhood, which included frequent moves and periods of homelessness. In 1984, she graduated with honors from Barnard College. The book is this year's Freshmen Read at LRU.
"The Glass Castle" was a best seller and is now being developed as a film by Paramount. The book sold more than 1.5 million copies and has been translated into 16 languages. It received the Christopher Award, the American Library Association's Alex Award and the Books for Better Living Award.
Publisher's Weekly described the book this way: "Walls opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's overdressed for the evening and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, rooting through a Dumpster.
"Walls' parents — just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book — were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had 'a little bit of a drinking situation,' as her mother put it. With a fantastic storytelling knack, Walls describes her artist mom's great gift for rationalizing. Apartment walls so thin they heard all their neighbors? What a bonus — they'd 'pick up a little Spanish without even studying.'
"The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show. One by one, each child escaped to New York City. Still, it wasn't long before their parents appeared on their doorsteps. 'Why not?' Mom said. 'Being homeless is an adventure.'"
Walls began her career as a journalist, writing for New York Magazine, Esquire and USA Today and appearing regularly on The Today Show, CNN, and PrimeTimeLive. Her first book, "Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip," was published in 2000. Walls wrote her MSNBC.com "Scoop" column for nearly eight years.
Her second novel, "Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel," was recently released. It tells the story of her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith.
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