CHICAGO HEIGHTS—(ENEWSPF)—October 13, 2014. Prairie State College (PSC) is sponsoring a series of lectures and workshops as part of its “One Book, One Community” event featuring the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, by author Gene Luen Yang.
There are events scheduled throughout the month of October and into November. All events are free, open to the public and appropriate for audiences of all ages. On-campus events are being held in the Conference Center on the PSC main campus, located at 202 S. Halsted St. in Chicago Heights. Locations for off-campus events include Crete Public Library District, Lansing Public Library, Flossmoor Public Library, and Park Forest Public Library. A full list of events, dates, times and locations is available at www.prairiestate.edu/Assets/Global/pdf/OneBookOneCommunityflier.pdf.
The highlighted events include local artist Matt Hansel hosting several hands-on workshops to illustrate how to draw and design elements of graphic novels, including design, storytelling and visual flow, in addition to showing the audience penciling and inking. Also, Matthew Steele, coordinator/virtual service, library and instructional services at PSC, and PSC Assistant Professors Megan Hughes and John Schleuter will present a workshop for parents and teachers that will focus on graphic novels and literacy, how graphic novels can be used to encourage students of all ages to read/learn and using nonfiction books in graphic format. Additional off-campus lectures feature PSC Assistant Professor Hyrum LaTurner and PSC Professor Leslie Tischauser. On-campus lectures will feature Tischauser, LaTurner and adjunct faculty member Rainer Zawadski.
As the cover of the novel says, American Born Chinese follows “Three very different characters, one simple goal: to fit in.”
On his blog, author Yang says, “I started American Born Chinese about five years into my comics career…. I’d done a couple of stories with Asian-American protagonists, but I never dealt with the Asian-American experience head-on.”
He added, “Since my own ethnic heritage is such an important part of how I understand myself, I knew I wanted to. I came up with three ideas and couldn’t decide which one was the best. American Born Chinese is me doing all three at once.”
For more information about the One Book, One Community events hosted by PSC, contact Steele at 708-709-3560 or [email protected].
Source: prairiestate.edu
