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Wells Tower and "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned"

By Rich Fisher

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kwgs/local-kwgs-884587.mp3

Tulsa, Oklahoma – On this edition of our show, we hear from the prize-winning journalist and fiction writer Wells Tower, whose debut collection of short stories, "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned," was one of the most acclaimed books published in America last year. The book is just out in paperback, and Tower will appear in Tulsa tomorrow night (Wednesday the 10th) at a reading-and-signing event at the Hotel Ambassador. This event begins at 7pm, and it's co-presented by Book Smart Tulsa and the University of Tulsa's Nimrod International Literary Journal. Tower's short stories and journalism have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, McSweeney's, The Paris Review, The Washington Post Magazine, and elsewhere. As Edmund White noted in his typically glowing review of Tower's short-story collection in The New York Times Book Review: "Every one of the stories in 'Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned' is polished and distinctive. Though he's intrigued by the painful experiences of men much older than he is, Tower can write with equal power about young women and boys; about hell-raising, skull-bashing ancient Vikings and an observant housebound old man of the 21st century, even about a cheerful, insouciant pedophile. His range is wide and his language impeccable, never strained or fussy. His grasp of human psychology is fresh and un-Freudianizing."