Monday, September 17, 2007

Wilmington, NC-UNC Wilmington English professor Janet Mason Ellerby will read from her latest book, Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother's Memoir, from 7 to 9 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007 at the Lumina Theater in the Fisher Student Center.

Coming of age in America during the revolutionary 1960s, Ellerby recounts the isolation and regret she experienced as a result of her unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent adoption of her daughter. In this memoir, she trains an attentive ear not only to her private heartbreak, but also to the insistent drumbeat of social and political change brought forth by the civil rights movement, presidential assassinations and the Vietnam War. Poised between the conservativism of the '50s and the permissiveness of the '70s, Ellerby comments on the evolving trends in adoption policy, and critiques a culture that would simultaneously sanction the banishment of a teenage girl while launching men into outer space.

Ellerby has been a member of the UNCW faculty for 17 years. Currently assistant chair in the Department of English, she specializes in narrative theory, the novel, modernism and autobiography. Her many seminars on autobiography and memoir led to the 2001 publication of her first book, Intimate Reading: The Contemporary Women's Memoir.

This event is sponsored by the UNCW Department of English. It is free and open to the public. A reception will follow during which Ellerby will sign copies of her book.

Media contacts:

Janet Ellerby, professor of English, 910.962.3764 or ellerbyj@uncw.edu

Dana Fischetti, manager of news and media relations, 910.962.7259 or fischettid@uncw.edu