Join Northwestern University authors Michele Weldon and Abigail Foerstner for a public discussion, book signing and reception

Michele Weldon explores 21st century news with her latest book Everyman News: The Changing American Front Page (University of Missouri Press). Scanning the crowded media landscape, Weldon takes a fresh look at how the changing front pages of newspapers have carved out a narrative niche that reflects society's fascination with personal stories and readers demands for diversity. Weldon compared more than 850 stories, story approaches and sourcing to offer a provocative look at how today's front page has shifted to more anecdotal storytelling from a format once called the "first draft of history."

Weldon continues her 25-year career as an award-winning journalist while teaching more than 200 students a year fundamental skills as an assistant professor at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. Weldon previous books include a creative nonfiction memoir, I Closed My Eyes , and Writing to Save Your Life, a seminal guidebook for narrative therapy. Both books have been translated into several languages.

Abigail Foerstner celebrates the upcoming 50th anniversary of America's first satellites in her new book James Van Allen: the First Eight Billion Miles (University of Iowa Press). Her biography brings the general reader the drama of Van Allen's Cold War drive to launch earth satellites and then the first missions to other planets. His instruments on board Pioneer 10 raced against Voyager 1 to discover the boundary of the solar system and took us 8 billion miles out in space. This is the first biography of the space pioneer who discovered the earth's radiation belts and helped remap the solar system.

Foerstner wrote for the Chicago Tribune for 25 years on science, the arts and urban issues. She continues to cross between science and the arts in her reporting and is the arts columnist for North Shore magazine. She teaches newswriting and science journalism at Medill. She recovered century-old photographs to document a lost way of life in a religious utopia for her previous book, Picturing Utopia, and writes essays for art books.

Reading of current works by Alex Kotlowitz

Winter Quarter 2008 Visiting Writer in Residence for the Center for the Writing Arts, teaching the Art of Nonfiction: Telling Stories.

Alex Kotlowitz is the award-winning author of There Are No Children Here , The Other Side of the River , and Never a City So Real . Contributor to The New York Times Magazine and public radio's This American Life. Alex Kotlowitz is renowned for his narratives of particular individuals whose concrete life experiences illuminate broad aspects of our nation's social and political landscape.

Reading and Discussion of Troubadour Poems from the South of France

Sponsored by the French and Italian Department, the Writing Program, the Center for the Writing Arts, and the Medevial Colloquium

The poetry of the troubadours was famous throughout the middle ages, but the difficulty and diversity of the original languages have been obstacles to its appreciation by a wider audience. This collection aims to redress the situation, presenting English verse translations in contemporary idiom and a highly readable form. It includes some 125 poems, with a strong representation of those composed by women, and goes beyond traditional limits in time to feature a sampling of the earliest texts in the Occitan language, written in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and later works from the early fourteenth. Though most poems translated in the book were written in Occitan, the vernacular of southern France, there are also a few translations of poems written in the same place and time but in other languages, including Latin, Hebrew, Norse, Catalan, and Italian. Genres include love songs, satires, invectives, pastourelles, debates, laments, and religious songs. A comprehensive introduction places the troubadours in their historical context and traces the development of their art; headnotes introduce each poet, and the book ends with a bibliography and suggestions for further reading. WILLIAM D. PADEN is a Professor of French and Italian at Northwestern University, and was recently named a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques. FRANCES FREEMAN PADEN is a Distinguished Senior Lecturer in The Writing Program and Gender Studies, also at Northwestern University.

NU Writers and Their Writing with David Standish, Reading from Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth's Surface

The idea that another world exists below the surface of the Earth has captivated science fiction and fantasy writers since the days of Edgar Allan Poe's "Ms. Found in a Bottle" and Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. As Standish reveals, the theory has also been promoted by serious (if sometimes slightly off-kilter) scientists, beginning with the eminent Edmond Halley, who theorized that smaller concentric spheres were nested inside the Earth.

David Standish has been the editorial adviser for 12 Magazine Publishing Project prototypes. He also teaches magazine writing. When not teaching, he works as a freelance writer, primarily for magazines.

He was an editor at Playboy for 10 years, and has written many articles for that magazine. He has also written for Esquire, Travel & Leisure, Outside, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Audubon, GEO, Landscape Architecture, House Beautiful, Reader's Digest, Diversion, Chicago, Satisfaction and others. He writes occasional nationally syndicated travel articles for Universal Press Syndicate. He was author in 2000 of The Art of Money (Chronicle Books), which was named one of the 10 notable art books of the year by the New York Times. In the mid-80s he was also a co-writer of the film comedy "Club Paradise," which starred Peter O'Toole and Robin Williams.

Diane McWhorter discusses, Searching for America: Reporting from the Social Frontier

Diane McWhorter

Journalist Diane McWhorter contributes regularly to USA Today's op-ed pages and The New York Times. She's written on race, politics and other topics for numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and People. McWhorter's first book, Carry Me Home - a history of the civil rights struggle in her native Birmingham, AL - won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2002. Her new book, A Dream of Freedom, is an illustrated civil rights history for children.

Erik Larson discusses, Reporting on the Past:The Craft of Nonfiction

The best-selling author Erik Larson writes books that weave together multiple plots based on actual events. His best-known books are Issac's Storm, about Galveston's killer hurricane, and The Devil in The White City, about the architect who built Chicago's World's Fair and the serial killer who preyed on women drawn to that city. In his new book, Thunderstruck, Larson dives into the North London Cellar Murder, writing about a notorious crime just prior to World War I.

He is a former features writer for The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, where he is still a contributing writer. His magazine stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and other publications.

A Public Conversation: Radio Diaries, with Alex Kotlowitz and Joe Richman

Winter Quarter 2008 Visiting Writer in Residence for the Center for the Writing Arts, teaching the Art of Nonfiction: Telling Stories.

Alex Kotlowitz is the award-winning author of There Are No Children Here , The Other Side of the River , and Never a City So Real . Contributor to The New York Times Magazine and public radio's This American Life. Alex Kotlowitz is renowned for his narratives of particular individuals whose concrete life experiences illuminate broad aspects of our nation's social and political landscape.

Joe Richman is an award-winning independent producer and reporter for public radio, and the founder of Radio Diaries. Before becoming an independent producer, Joe worked on the National Public Radio programs All Things Considered, Weekend Edition Saturday, Car Talk and Heat . Joe is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.