Victoria Patterson, OC's Best Author, to Speak at Fullerton Library THIS Thursday


Screw Dean Koontz, T. Jefferson Parker, yours truly, and all the other “authors” who couldn't write a kindergarten tract if you gave them the “see” and the “spot”: Victoria Patterson is our best writer, both in fiction and in writing about Orange County, and an awesome, awesome mind.

She'll be speaking with me THIS Thursday at the Fullerton Public Library, as part of my “Gustavo's Awesome Lecture Series!” held in conjunction with them and Cal State Fullerton's Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, where I'm a lecturer.
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More info on Patterson? Here's the blurb we wrote in this year's Best Of issue:

She rolled her experiences growing up and coming of age in Newport Beach in the 1980s into her first book, Drift, a collection of 13 loosely linked short stories revolving around the non-beautiful people of the moneyed coastal enclave. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the best books of 2009, and it was a finalist for the California Book Award and 2009 Story Prize. Patterson's follow-up, her first novel, This Vacant Paradise, is a modern reinterpretation of Edith Wharton's House of Mirth that once again leans on her hometown for its backdrop, although this time the action is set in the go-go 1990s. The New York Times Book Review hailed the novel as a recent Editors Choice. Another reason to love Patterson is her aversion to promoting her work via social networking. Writing for Three Guys One Book, she describes suffering insomnia while trying to spread the word about Drift on Facebook because “I found myself scrutinizing vacation photos of strangers on FB rather than reading or writing. For this, I blame myself, not FB.” For This Vacant Paradise, the Pasadena transplant has stayed off Facebook (one year and counting) and won't tweet, and her Three Guys One Book piece is the closest she'll get to blogging. “Perhaps this is idealistic,” she explains, “but I'd rather my work develop a fan base.” It already has.

What will we talk about? Writing, of course, but also gossipping about Newport Beach, SanTana, and all other sorts of desmadre. Event starts at 6:30. See you there!

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