ARTS . Arts Picks

Michael Martone

Thu., Feb. 21, 6 p.m., Arts Café at Kelly Writers House, Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-573-9748, writing.upenn.edu.


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Published: Feb 19, 2008

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It's no surprise that the place that gave us Dave Letterman, Alfred Kinsey and Dan Quayle would also create a curiously abnormal writer like Michael Martone to use the state as his muse. Indiana doesn't appear in every one of his short stories, but I bet we're looking at a .750 batting average at least. According to Martone — who now teaches creative writing in Alabama — the Hoosier state is a wonderland of strange scenes played out by sympathetic oddballs, a funhouse mirror reflection on the American heartland. See collections like Fort Wayne is Seventh on Hitler's List and Alive and Dead in Indiana (his 1984 debut). In fact, see them all in the massive collection-of-collections Double-Wide, which came out last year.

Thu., Feb. 21, 6 p.m., Arts Café at Kelly Writers House, Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-573-9748, writing.upenn.edu.