Athens, Ga. – Michael Donohue, whose essay “Russell and Mary” was published in the Fall/Winter 2006 issue of The Georgia Review, the University of Georgia’s journal of arts and letters, will hold a two-day series of lectures in Athens to discuss his award-winning work.
“Russell and Mary” won the 2007 National Magazine Award in Essays (beating out finalists that included The New Yorker and Smithsonian) and the Gold Award in Essays presented by the Magazine Association of the Southeast.
On Feb. 17 at 10:30 a.m., Donohue will speak at the Athens Community Council on Aging, 135 Hoyt St.In his talk, titled “Re-creating Lives,” the author will discuss the crafting of his prizewinning piece, which deals with a “biography” of a deceased couple that is based on a found box of letters and other papers. A question-and-answer session will follow.
At 3:30 p.m. on the same day, in room 348 of the Miller Learning Center on the UGA campus, Donohue will present “Starting with a Bang,” his account of getting into print for the first time and then having that work win a major award. As during the morning program, Donohue will take questions from the audience.
On Feb. 18 at 7 p.m., Donohue will read from “Russell and Mary” and other works in the Rialto Room of the Hotel Indigo, 500 College Ave.
All of Donohue’s appearances are free and open to the public; copies of The Georgia Review issue featuring “Russell and Mary” will be available for purchase at all events.
Donohue lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches at St. Ann’s School. He and his wife, Dune, recently returned to the United States after living for several years in Beijing, where she was on a journalistic assignment and he taught at a university part time.
The National Magazine Awards competition, sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors and administrated by the Columbia University School of Journalism, began in 1966 and is generally considered to be the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Academy, the Tony and the Peabody awards. In various categories, the NMA judging”honors magazines, published in print or online, that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative editorial techniques, noteworthy journalistic enterprise and imaginative design.” The Review won its first NMA in 1986 for fiction and has been a finalist in various categories numerous times over the years, including the prestigious General Excellence Award in 2008.
Donohue’s presentations are made possible in part by a grant from the Southern Arts Federation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Georgia Council for the Arts, with additional support from the Hotel Indigo and the Rialto Club.
For more information, see www.thegeorgiareview.com.