Writer Steve Rushin to Give Literary Reading

Tonight's reading program with writer Steve Rushin and Westminster student Kwaku Akoi will proceed as scheduled, starting at 7 p.m.  Please drive carefully.

Award-winning writer Steve Rushin will be the featured reader on Feb. 26 at the fourth of six readings in Westminster School’s Friday Night Readings series. The series features readings given by guest writers and Westminster students on selected Fridays during the 2009-2010 academic year. The student reader will be Sixth Former Kwaku Akoi.

The reading will be one of Rushin’s first public appearances following the publication this month of his first novel, “The Pint Man.” According to Carl Hiaason (author of “Nature Girl” and “The Downhill Lie”), “‘The Pint Man’ is clever, bracing and full of laughs. Steve Rushin proves to be a master juggler of words, a mischievous crossword-puzzler run amok.”

Rushin is a well-known sports and travel writer and essayist. For 19 years, he wrote articles and columns for Sports Illustrated, and in 2006, the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association named him the National Sportswriter of the Year.

He has been described as “one of the most agile essayists around” by Publishers Weekly, which listed his book “Road Swing” among the Best Books of 1998. Money magazine called the book "one of the funniest travelogues ever written" and Sports Illustrated named it one of the Top 100 Sports Books of All Time.

A collection of Rushin's travel and sports writing, “The Caddie Was a Reindeer: And Other Tales of Extreme Recreation,” was published in 2005 and was named a semifinalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

Rushin is a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, and his work has appeared in The Best American Magazine Writing, The Best American Travel Writing and The Best American Sports Writing anthologies. His essays have also appeared in Time and The New York Times, among other publications.

Rushin grew up in Bloomington, Minn., and is a graduate of Marquette University. He and his wife, Rebecca Lobo, live in Connecticut with their two children.

The Westminster School reading is free and open to the public and will take place from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Gund Reading Room of the Armour Academic Center. Refreshments will be served at the conclusion of the reading and ample parking will be available in the parking lot adjacent to the Armour Academic Center. Other readings in the series will take place in April and May.