By Staff
Tickets are now on sale for the Friday, May 13, appearance of mystery writer and social activist Sara Paretsky.
Paretsky's appearance is an event of the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival, which runs from May 6-14.
Paretsky will speak at Central Middle School at 7:30 p.m.
Paretsky revolutionized the mystery world when she introduced her private detective, V.I. Warshawski, in her 1982 novel, "Indemnity Only."
By creating a strong female investigator who uses her wits as well as her fists, Paretsky challenged the conventions of a genre in which women traditionally were either vamps or victims.
The challenge struck a cord and Indemnity Only was hailed by critics and fans.
Nine other Warshawski novels followed.
All became national bestsellers.
The Los Angeles Times stated, "Paretsky is unique among the women writing about women," while Publishers Weekly claimed, "Among today's P.I.s nobody comes close to Warshawski."
Total Recall was published in 2001 and her new book Blacklist was recently on the New York Times bestseller list.
In addition to her Warshawski novels, Paretsky has written a non-series novel, "Ghost Country," which blends comedy, magic and a gritty realism in a riotous ride along Chicago's mean streets.
She has also edited three collections of short stories.
Her books are published in 24 languages.
Paretsky's deep-rooted concern for social justice, the hallmark of her novels, has carried her voice far beyond the world of crime fiction.
As a frequent contributor to The New York Times' op-ed page, and a speaker at such places as the Library of Congress, Oxford University and the University of Chicago, she is an impassioned advocate for those on society's margins.
Not only has Paretsky broken barriers with her work, she has also helped open doors for other women writers in the field. Her role in founding Sisters in Crime, an organization that supports women mystery writers, led Ms. Magazine to name her Woman of the Year in 1988. In 2002, the British Crime Writers Association awarded her the Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement. Paretsky has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and a visiting professor at Northwestern University. Her work is celebrated in Pamela Beere Briggs's 2000 documentary, Women of Mystery. She has received three honorary doctorates, most recently, in June 2002, from Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Illinois.
To give back to the community, Paretsky has established several scholarships at the University of Kansas including a special prize for students doing creative work in the arts or sciences. In 2001, she established the Sara and Two C-Dogs Foundation, which primarily supports girls and women in the arts, letters and sciences. She has also mentored students in Chicago's inner city schools.
Paretsky grew up in eastern Kansas. She and her four brothers attended a two-room country school, where Paretsky began her lifelong love of baseball and underdogs, playing third base for a school team that always finished at the bottom of its rural league. Her first published writing, which appeared in The American Girl magazine when she was eleven, told a tale of surviving a tornado with her schoolmates. While at the University of Kansas, Paretsky went to Chicago to do community service under the direction of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Staying on to make Chicago her home, she received both a doctorate in history and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Tickets for Ms. Paretsky's lecture are available by calling the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival office at 269-782-1115 or by phoning Rich and Teri Frantz at 269-782-8070. Tickets are $25 Main Floor, $20 First Balcony, $15 Second Balcony, and $60 for the private reception tickets, which include premium seating for the lecture. Discount rates are available for groups of 8 or more.