Best-selling author Julie Schumacher to give reading at Matheson

Schumacher, an author of several novels, received critical acclaim in 2015 as the first female winner of the esteemed Thurber Prize for American Humor for this epistolary tome of fictional recommendation letters penned by a burnt-out literature professor. “Dear Committee Members” was published in August 2014 by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. It is a “New York Times” best seller and received Best Book of 2014, critics’ choice and other top honors by National Public Radio, “The Boston Globe,” London Times Higher Education and other notable media and organizations.

The literature reading and book signing event will be held Thurs., Oct. 26, 7 – 8 p.m. at La Sierra University’s Matheson Hall. Admission is free.

“Dear Committee Members” is comprised of a year’s worth of recommendation letters written by protagonist Jason Fitger, a frustrated academic, author, and relationship failure trapped in the bureaucracy of a small Midwestern liberal arts university that is focusing its financial resources on professional programs. Fitger lets loose his animus in brilliantly skewed and comically self-absorbed letters of recommendation for students and colleagues, providing highly descriptive, tongue-in-cheek insights about his personal frustrations and about the job-seekers who desire positions at any variety of establishments—a prestigious literary program in Maine, Avengers Paintball, Inc. and Catfish Catering, to name a few.

The novel has incurred numerous reviews by national news media including “New York Post,” “Houston Chronicle” and “The Wall Street Journal” which respectively referred to “Dear Committee Members” as “very funny,” “surprisingly poignant,” and “bitterly hilarious.”

Schumacher lives in St. Paul, Minn. and is a faculty member in the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English at the University of Minnesota. Her most recent work, “Doodling for Academics,” is a coloring book for professors published this year by University of Chicago Press, and that is receiving media accolades. Her first novel, “The Body Is Water,” was published by Soho Press in 1995 and was a finalist for both the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Minnesota Book Award.

Schumacher bases her writing projects on personal experience. “…and then, because I love the freedom of fiction, I stretch the truth to make the narrative more appealing,” she said. “My last two books are focused on higher education, and they give voice to the comedy and the occasional nuttiness of academia. My main character in “Dear Committee Members” is in many ways not a very nice person; on the other hand, he cares enormously about education, specifically the arts and humanities, at a moment when we are always being pushed toward the STEM fields.”

She is currently working on a novel titled “The Shakespeare Requirement” based on the main character in “Dear Committee Members.” “I fell in love with him and wanted to write about him again,” Schumacher said. The book is expected to be published in 2018.

Schumacher grew up in Wilmington, Del. one of five sisters. “I have to credit both of my parents for helping me to become a writer: my father, for being a natural story-teller and yarn-spinner; my mother, for showing me how to love books,” she said. “I had some terrific teachers, too, from high school English through college and graduate school, people who paid attention to what I was writing and took me seriously, which is a great gift.”

Schumacher arrives at La Sierra University through the invitation of La Sierra Associate Professor of English Sari Fordham who was previously a graduate student of Schumacher’s at the University of Minnesota. “She’s been on my wish-list for a while. We’re excited to have her visit,” said Fordham who brings leading authors to La Sierra’s campus every fall.

La Sierra University is located at 4500 Riverwalk Parkway, Riverside, Calif., 92505. For further information please call 951-785-2241.