For immediate release
March 2, 2015
Visiting Writer Patricia Hampl to Read at the University of North Carolina Wilmington
March 24.
WILMINGTON, N.C.— Patricia Hampl will read at 7 p.m., Tuesday, March 24 in Morton Hall
100.
Patricia Hampl first won recognition for A Romantic Education, her Cold War memoir about her
Czech heritage. This book and subsequent works have established her as an influential figure in
the rise of autobiographical writing in the past 30 years. Her most recent book, The Florist’s
Daughter, won numerous “best” and “year end” awards, including the New York Times “100
Notable Books of the Year” and the 2008 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative
Nonfiction. Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime was also one of the Times Notable Books; a
portion was chosen for The Best Spiritual Writing 2005. I Could Tell You Stories, her collection of
essays on memory and imagination, was a finalist in 2000 for the National Book Critics Circle
Awards in General Nonfiction. Other works include Spillville, a meditation on Antonin
Dvorak’s 1893 summer in Iowa, Virgin Time, about her Catholic upbringing and an inquiry into
contemplative life, and Burning Bright, an anthology of sacred poetry from Judaism, Christianity
and Islam. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Woman before an Aquarium, and Resort
and Other Poems, which Carnegie Mellon Press chose for its Contemporary Classics series.
She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Bush Foundation, National
Endowment for the Arts, Ingram Merrill Foundation and Djerassi Foundation. In 1990 she was
awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Ms. Hampl is Regents Professor and McKnight
Distinguished Professor at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, a member of the
permanent faculty of the Prague Summer Program, and affiliated with Kingston UniversityLondon as Visiting Professor in the Centre for Life Narratives.
Praise for The Florist’s Daughter
“The result is electric and alive, containing a fire her mother would surely recognize and a
beauty her father would approve . . . . . Hampl’s honest examination of her own life makes “The
Florist’s Daughter” a wonder of a memoir.”—New York Times Book Review
All events are free and open to the public. Receptions sponsored by the department and book
signings sponsored by Pomegranate Books will follow readings.
For further information on UNCW’s programs and events in creative writing, please contact the
Department of Creative Writing at 910.962.7063.
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