We Welcome Floyd Skloot Back to BB

Broadway Books is pleased to welcome back one of our favorites, Floyd Skloot, on Tuesday, October 25th, at 7pm. Floyd will be reading from his recently published collection of short stories, Cream of Kohlrabi, published by Tupelo Press. The collection, which gathers sixteen stories from the more than forty he has published since 1976, is his first collection of stories.

Here is what the magazine Publishers Weekly had to say about the collection in its review: "In this breathtaking collection of sixteen intimate stories by award-winning poet, novelist, and memoirist Skloot, characters struggle with their failing bodies and minds--and the ensuing loss of dignity--while demonstrating their will to live. Skloot's humane approach reveals the truth of each character's condition as well as the challenges of everyday life for the sick and aging--all to haunting and powerful effect....Skloot's subtle, vividly descriptive stories allow his characters glimmers of hope and strength amidst the pain. Readers can't help but be moved."

Floyd was born in Brooklyn and moved to Portland in 1984. In 1988 while on a business trip he contracted a virus that targeted his brain. His neurological functions -- memory, balance, reasoning, concentration, etc., were greatly affected, forcing him to learn to live in a whole new way and to completely change his writing process, writing in smaller chunks and fragments and not relying on abstractions or predetermined structure. "Writing has become an act of discovery for me," and Floyd shares that exploration with his readers.

He received his BA in English from Franklin & Marshall College and his MA in English from Southern Illinois University. In 1993 he married Beverly Hallberg -- a painter and fiber artist who has created the artwork for the covers of several of Floyd's books -- and for thirteen years they lived in a cedar yurt in the middle of twenty hilly acres near Amity before moving back to Portland.

Floyd began writing poetry in 1970, fiction in 1975, and essays in 1990. Since that time he has published seven collections of poetry (with another, Close Reading, to be published by Tupelo Press in 2012), four collections of creative nonfiction (the most recent being The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer's Life in 2008), four novels (Patient 002 came out in 2007), and now a collection of short stories. He also co-edited The Best American Science Writing 2011(Harper Collins) with his daughter, Rebecca Skloot, author of the bestselling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

In January 2010, Poets and Writers magazine named Floyd one of the fifty most inspiring authors in the world.  He has contributed to publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Poetry, The Sewanee Review, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly, Hudson Review, Boulevard, and Southwest Review. His book reviews frequently appear in the Boston Globe, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Harvard Review.

Floyd has received the PEN USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction, three Pushcart Prizes, two Pacific NW Booksellers Book Awards, and two Oregon Book Awards.

The writer Phillip Lopate had this to say about Floyd: "Floyd Skloot has developed into one of the finest essayists we have. His strong, subtle, exquisitely truthful and often very funny writing testifies to an impressive humanity and maturity." Other reviewers offer these descriptions: "A master of the genre." "Floyd Skloot is the Willie Mays of memoirists." "He offers spare sentences that evoke a world." "Skloot's craft is nothing short of masterful."

We hope you can join us tomorrow night for an evening of wonderful storytelling with Floyd Skloot.