Tuesday, August 21, 2012
7:00pm
Trinity United Methodist Church
225 W. President St.

SAVANNAH, Ga. - The Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home in Savannah will present a lecture by
award-winning author Luis Alberto Urrea on Tuesday, August 21 at 7pm at Trinity United Methodist Church, located at 225 W. President St. on Telfair Square. A reception and book signing will immediately follow the lecture. All events are free and open to the public.
Urrea will be the featured speaker for the 2012 Ashley and Terry Ursrey Memorial Lecture Series. The Ursrey Lecture Series is endowed in memory of the brothers Terry and Ashley Ursrey, native Georgians who, like Flannery O'Connor, were lifelong devotees of all things Southern, particularly the art of storytelling. The series officially debuted in 2008 with a talk by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Cunningham.
Luis Alberto Urrea is a prolific and award-winning writer. Born in Tijuana, Mexico to a Mexican father and an American mother, Luis grew up in San Diego, California. He is a master of language and a gifted storyteller who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss, and triumph. The author of fourteen books, Luis Urrea has published extensively in many genres and has received many prestigious awards. The Devil's Highway, his 2004 non-fiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His highly acclaimed historical novels, The Hummingbird's Daughter and Queen of America, tell the story of Teresita Urrea, a great aunt who was a healer and Mexican folk hero at the turn of the 20th century. Luis is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of
Illinois-Chicago. He lives with his wife Cinderella ("Cindy") and their youngest daughter in Naperville, IL.

ABOUT THE FLANNERY O’CONNOR CHILDHOOD HOME:
The Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home, located at 207 E. Charlton Street in the heart of Savannah, Georgia, is dedicated to preserving the legacy of one of the South’s greatest writers. An established 501 3(C) nonprofit organization, the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home has been meticulously restored to reflect the authentic period furnishings of a Depression-Era Savannah rowhouse and to offer insight into the years that O’Connor lived in Savannah, from 1925 to 1938. The Home proudly presents a series of free lectures each spring and fall as well as other events throughout the year. For more information, please visit www.flanneryoconnorhome.org or call 912.233.6014.