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This author appeared at the 2009 festival. Please view the list of authors appearing at this year's festival or see our suggestions for similar authors below.
 Tracy Daugherty
In Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme, Daugherty details the life of the father of postmodern pastiche fiction with an affinity and insight that only a former friend and student could provide. Barthelme was the author of a prolific amount of surrealistic short stories first collected in Sixty Stories, which won the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction, as well as lauded novels such as Snow White and The Dead Father. His work reached the height of its influence in the 1970's, when he found his niche in New York City among the writers and artists of the era, and formed friendships with literary giants such as Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Norman Mailer. Daugherty covers his mentor's struggles with his domineering father, his tumultuous four marriages, and his increasing dependency on alcohol. Though born in Philadelphia, Barthelme grew up in Houston, the city that would shape him as a writer in his early life and to which he would return later to help mold the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston into the esteemed workshop it is today. His work was an affront to the steady rise of realism in modern novels, and his short stories, with their fragmented, experimental, and playful narratives, have profoundly influenced a new generation of writers. The Washington Post calls Daugherty a "knowledgeable curator" and The New York Times asserts that Barthelme is "lucky, finally, in having a biographer who… creates a convincing narrative out of a life that was deeply engaged, passionate and maybe even fulfilled, despite the demons." Daugherty grew up in Texas and is a former graduate student of Barthelme's. He is the author of four novels, three collections of short stories, and a book of essays. Daugherty is a Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at Oregon State University.
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