Author of The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes to Present Reading of Her Work

Award-winning Randi Davenport to appear at The College of Wooster on Sept. 8

WOOSTER, Ohio — Randi Davenport, winner of the 2011 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for Creative Non-Fiction for The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes, will give a reading on Thursday, Sept. 8 at The College of Wooster. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Room 244 of Kauke Hall (400 E. University St.) at 4 p.m.

The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes is Davenport’s story of her successful struggle to hold her family together while her son descended into psychological trouble that doctors could not diagnose. Novelist Lee Smith calls the memoir a “brave and beautiful story by a born writer. This book is like a beacon, offering clarity, inspiration, and validation for us all, especially those of us, like myself, who have struggled with serious mental illness in our families . . . and that’s two out of five families in the United States.”

Davenport’s short fiction and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Ontario Review, The Alaska Review, and Literature/Film Quarterly. She has taught literature and writing at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She now serves as executive director of the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Davenport’s appearance is sponsored by the Department of English and the Donaldson Fund. Additional information is available by phone (330-263-2575) or e-mail.