Essayist Elena Passarello will give a free public reading at Ithaca College on Tuesday, April 24. Her 5:30 p.m. presentation in Clark Lounge, Campus Center, is sponsored by the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series.
Passarello’s first essay collection, “Let Me Clear My Throat,” dissected the whys and hows of popular voices, from the infamous “Dean Scream” of presidential candidate Howard Dean to the “Wilhelm Scream” sound effect used in a multitude of movies. In her second collection, “Animals Strike Curious Poses,” she discusses 16 famous animals named and immortalized by humans, from Yuka the mummified mammoth (37,000 B.C.) to Cecil the Lion (2015).
Passarello is the recipient of the Independent Publishers’ gold medal for nonfiction and the 2015 Whiting Award in nonfiction, as well as a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. The nonfiction editor at Iron Horse Review and co-editor of the “In Place” nonfiction series at West Virginia University Press, she teaches literary nonfiction at Oregon State University.
For more information, visit www.ithaca.edu/dvw.