Thurber House partnership announced

Denison University, a national liberal arts college, and Thurber House, a non-profit literary center and museum devoted to acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist and humorist James Thurber, have announced a new partnership. The college’s Harriet Ewens Beck Series, which brings nationally renowned authors to Denison’s campus to read from their works and engage with students, will collaborate with Thurber House to host an annual author reading at the Columbus Museum of Art. The partnership will open in the fall of 2016. The author for that event has not yet been determined.

“This is the kind of partnership Thurber House loves — expanding audiences, shining the spotlight on Columbus, and working with a fantastic Ohio university,” said Susanne Jaffe, creative director for Thurber House. “All of us at Thurber House are delighted with this new relationship, and look forward to doing many terrific literary events together in the future.”

Michael Croley, a creative writing professor at Denison, proposed the partnership. “We wanted to find an institution that could be both partners and collaborators in drawing attention to the literary arts. The Beck Series is one of the strongest literary programs in the country, and Thurber House has a long history of producing first-rate events.” In its 50-year history, the Beck Series has brought to Denison’s campus an array of Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners as well as U.S. Poet Laureates. Visitors have included Adrienne Rich, Eudora Welty, Louise Erdrich, Philip Levine, Terrance Hayes, Charles Baxter, Billy Collins and Robert Hass.

Croley added, “We wanted to increase our series’ visibility to the local community and extend its reach into Columbus. Susanne was open to the idea and we’re both excited about the opportunities this partnership will give our students to be more aligned and engaged with Columbus, given our close proximity to one another.”

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Thurber House, the home of humorist, author, and New Yorker cartoonist James Thurber, is a non-profit literary center and Thurber museum. Its mission is to celebrate the written word for the education and entertainment of the broadest possible audience and to continue the legacy of James Thurber. Its programs include the Thurber Prize for Humor, the only such recognition of humor writing in the country; a month-long residency for writers of children's literature; author readings; writing classes for children and adults and a museum of Thurber memorabilia. Thurber House is a unique national treasure.