The Spring 2004 Raymond Carver Reading Series at Syracuse University will commence with a non-fiction reading by best-selling author and SU professor David Hajdu on Feb. 9. The reading starts at 5:30 p.m. and will be held in Gifford Auditorium, located in Huntington Beard Crouse Hall. It is free and open to the public.
Hajdu, a professor in SU's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, is the author of two acclaimed, best-selling books: "Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn" (1996) and "Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fari?a and Richard Fari?a" (2001). Both were finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and both won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award.
He is a columnist for The New Republic, and he writes frequently for The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and Vanity Fair. In 2004, Hajdu was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for Profile Writing, and his work was selected for inclusion in the Best American Magazine Writing anthology. His articles and essays previously appeared in the books "Best Music Writing" and "O.K. You Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors."
He served as a top editor at Time Inc.'s Entertainment Weekly from 1990 to 1999. Before that, he worked in new-magazine development at the New York Times Magazine Group.
As an educator, Hajdu has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, at the New School Graduate Writing Program, and at the University of Chicago, where he was the Nonfiction Writer-in-Residence.
Hajdu has taught writing classes at the University of Chicago, New School University, New York University, Rutgers University, and Tufts University. He earned his bachelor of arts degree from New York University.
The Raymond Carver Reading Series is supported by The College of Arts and Sciences, the SU Library Associates, Stephen King, the Dr. Scholl Foundation and the Richard Elman Visiting Writer Fund.
