JOHN HODGMAN Fiction & Nonfiction Writer

Two McSweeney's Writers Two talented & funny young authors who publish regularly in McSweeney's, the hip online and print magazine October 25, 2005 (Tues) 4:15 p.m., Seminar Assembly Hall, CC 8:00 p.m. Reading Recital Hall, PAC

ARTHUR BRADFORD Fiction Writer / Filmmaker

John Hodgman's first book is The Areas of My Expertise (2005 ), a comical compendium inspired by Poor Richard's Almanack and The Book of Lists, but different in that it contains exclusively false information. "something of a Garrison Keillor for the young and expensively educated�." - Time Out New York "If Borges and Ben Franklin got drunk and decided to write a book together, the result might have been something a lot like this freaky 'almanac'--an eccentric compendium of useless trivia, fabricated facts, outlandish speculation, and sublime nonsense. John Hodgman is witty, urbane, and completely out to lunch." - Tom Perrota, bestselling author A former literary agent, Hodgman writes a regular, tongue-in-cheek advice column for McSweeney's (an independent publishing house founded by Dave Eggers), "Ask a Former Professional Literary Agent," and was recently named editor of a new humor section of the New York Times Magazine. He is a frequent contributor to NPR's "This American Life," and has published fiction and commentary in such publications as The Paris Review, One Story, and GQ. With the aim of reviving "the corpse of the literary reading," Hodgman founded and hosts the successful, offbeat, literary reading series, the Little Gray Book Lectures, based in Brooklyn, NY. "[Hodgman] puts on the single-most interesting literary event I've ever experienced, and he somehow manages to do this every month." - Chuck Klosterman, Esquire columnist Jonathan Coulton, is the accompanist for the Little Gray Book Lecture series, and will provide music for Hodgman's appearance. [See: htpp://www.jonathancoulton.com]

Arthur Bradford, O. Henry Award-winning short story writer and filmmaker, is the author of Dogwalker (2001), a comic, twisted, tender, and often nightmarish collection of stories about misfits and mutants.      "The most outlandish and energetic writer I can think of." - David Sedaris, bestselling humorist      "funny and huge-hearted" and it "reminds us how much smarter the back of the brain is than the front." - Esquire Bradford also directed the feature-length documentary, How's Your News (HBO/Cinemax, 2002) which features a team of five news reporters with mental and physical disabilities who drive across America interviewing the people they meet along the way. Bradford traces the film's origins to a video workshop that he taught over the course of several summers at Camp Jabberwocky, a Massachusetts program for adults with mental and physical disabilities. "Luminous and informed with ramshackle grace, it always knows the difference between laughing at and laughing with." - Village Voice "A knockout... sweetly touching and often hilarious.�" - "Boston Globe"