Sample Press Release
{Print your press release on your sponsoring organization's letterhead
or include name, address, and phone number of organization at top of release}
For Immediate Release
THE [SPONSORING ORGANIZATION] HOSTS HUMANITIES MONTANA SPEAKERS BUREAU
PROGRAM “HOW TO TELL A WAR STORY” WITH DAVID ABRAMS
[City–date]
The [sponsoring organization] will host the Humanities Montana Speakers Bureau program “How to Tell a
War Story” with David Abrams on [date of program]. The program will be at [location and time of
program]. The presentation is free and open to the public. Partial funding for the Speakers Bureau
program is provided by a legislative grant from Montana’s Cultural Trust and the National Endowment for
the Humanities.
War stories have been around since the day Odysseus came home from the Trojan War. But how much
of those stories is true and how much is exaggeration? In his short story about the Vietnam War, “How to
Tell a True War Story,” Tim O’Brien wrote, “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to
separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own
happening and has to be told that way”. Using that as a springboard, Iraq War veteran and novelist David
Abrams talks about how and why he turned his combat experience into fiction and what that means for
our larger perception of this 21st-century conflict. Abrams includes photos of his time serving with the 3rd
Infantry Division in Iraq in 2005 and reads short passages from his novel Fobbit. The talk also touches on
how war stories are part of the healing process for wounded warriors.
David Abrams is the author of Fobbit, a comedy about the Iraq War (Grove/Atlantic). His short stories
have appeared in Esquire, Narrative, Salamander, Connecticut Review, The Greensboro Review, The
Missouri Review, The North Dakota Review and other literary quarterlies. His short story about Iraq
appeared in an anthology of war fiction called Fire and Forget. He retired from active-duty after serving in
the U.S. Army for 20 years, a career which took him to Alaska, Texas, Georgia, the Pentagon, and Iraq.
He now lives with his wife in Butte, Mont.
For more information, please call [sponsoring organization] at [phone number].
###
Contact person: [project organizer and phone number]