An Evening with Larry Colton

 

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

 

Larry Colton has published hundreds of magazine articles for publications including Esquire, New York Times, Sports Illustrated and Ladies Home Journal. Colton was the recipient of the 2013 Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Oregon Book Award from Oregon Literary Arts, for his achievements as a writer and his role in founding Wordstock, literary festival and writing program. Larry has written 5 best selling books including:

 

"Counting Coup"

Colton's third book, Counting Coup, chronicled a dramatic season of a high school girls' basketball team in Montana that was competing for a state championship. The book received mostly positive reviews. Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love, observed that Colton placed his subjects "in the intricately tangled social contexts that lend weight and meaning far beyond the game."Counting Coup won the 2000 International E-Book of the Year Award, and the Frankfurt eBook Award in non-fiction in 2000.

 

"No Ordinary Joes"

No Ordinary Joes is Colton's 2010 account of the sinking of the US Navy submarine USS Grenadier, a little-known episode of World War II. The book is based on interviews with several of the survivors, and tells the interlocking stories of four shipmates on the Grenadier, from their childhoods through enlistment, courtships and deployment, and on to the horrors of life in a Japanese slave labor camp. The book received mainly positive reviews for its narrative and storytelling.

 

"Southern League"

Colton's 2013 book Southern League tells the story of the 1964 Birmingham Barons, the first integrated professional baseball team in Alabama, in the context of the Civil Rights Movement and the struggle for racial equality. The explores both the pennant race and Birmingham's complicated racial past, and the team's relationship with its young manager, Haywood Sullivan, a white Alabamian who went on to own the Boston Red Sox. Richard Ben Cramer wrote of Southern League: "When I read Counting Coup, I was staggered by Larry Colton's ability to persuade a group of high school girls to share their heart's secrets, so I am not surprised that for Southern League he could get a bunch of aging baseball players to remember the hopes and fears of their minor league days. The breadth of Colton's reporting here, placing the Birmingham Barons' 1964 season squarely into the context of the civil rights era, is a narrative tour de force."   

 

Tuesday, October 29^th, 2024 at 5:30pm in the Livingstone Room at

Gearhart Golf Links.   $100 per person will include:

• Roadhouse Barbeque Buffet (Assorted Salads, Red Eye Chili Coffee Rubbed Beef Brisket, Grilled Wild Salmon with Hogshead Mustard Sauce, Wine at each table, Coffee, Tea, and Desserts!)
• Signed Book to take home. Please choose here which book you would like:
  • Counting Coup
  • No Ordinary Joes
  • Southern League (+$20)
• Larry will speak to the group channeling his insatiable curiosity, trademark sense of humor, and vast knowledge of sports and life to entertain us for 30-45 minutes, with Q&A to follow.