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Rachel Chambers has written 4 entries since joining Art Culture

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Rachel Chambers was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona and recently moved to Seattle after graduating with her B.F.A. in Creative Writing from Chapman University in Southern California. She misses the sunshine, but so far is excited about the atmosphere of the city. She loves to travel and counts Germany, London, Jamaica, and Japan among her favorite places to visit. She has a soft spot for dogs, especially bulldogs, and most kinds of cheese. Her favorite author is J.D. Salinger and her favorite magazine is Vanity Fair.

Oct 08
Wednesday

Richard Russo:Seriously Funny

Filed under Art News, Artists/Spotlights

Richard Russo
Richard Russo
On Wednesday September 17th Seattle Arts and Lectures kicked off its 2008-2009 season with a lecture on humor by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo. Humor- it seemed an odd topic to me mainly because most of the aspects I remembered about Russo’s novel Empire Falls were dark in nature. The book explored characters dealing with abuse, vengeance, and culminated with an act of incredible violence that merited no kind of laughter. However, when I arrived at the opening gala for the lecture and began talking to fans of the author, the nuances of Russo’s work began to come back to me–images that made the book simultaneously full of heartbreaking points and laugh out loud moments. One reader told me that Russo’s work is the one book that her entire book club could agree on—and I think that has a lot to do with Russo’s work being able to slide from the humorless to the hilarious on the same page.

The effect of this combination is powerful and, as Benaroya Hall began to fill with Russo fans, it was clear that the author had made his mark. One patron confided to me that as soon as she heard that Russo was going to be the opening speaker she renewed her membership without even looking at the rest of the season’s guests—which is an impressive list had she needed more convincing. Continue…

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