Wallace State to welcome Harper Lee biographer Charles J. Shields to campus on April 19-20
HANCEVILLE, ALA. – Charles J. Shields, the author of the Harper Lee biography “Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee,” will speak at Wallace State Community College on Tuesday, April 19 and Wednesday, April 20 at 9:30 a.m. each day at the Burrow Center Recital Hall.
The events are free and open to the public.
Shields’s biography of Lee was released in 2006 and catapulted to a New York Times bestseller. Shields has traveled the country ever since, speaking about his decision to write a biography on Lee and his encounters over the last 10 years, including Lee’s efforts to discourage friends from talking to Shields.
Shields authored a second biography of Lee in 2008 titled “I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee.”
Lee was a Monroeville native who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” in 1960 and five decades later released the sequel “Go Set a Watchman” in 2015. Lee died in February at the age of 89.
Shields’s presentation also includes how and where he first came across “Go Set a Watchman,” and how it developed Lee as a writer.
In 2015, Shields was interviewed by 53 radio and television commentators, including CNN, MSNBC, Diane Rehm, NPR, BBC News, KCRW and BookTV and was quoted in 300 newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York times, The Washington Post and the New Republic.
Wallace State’s Learning Communities committee is sponsoring Shields’s visit to campus.
For more information about Wallace State, visit wallacestate.edu.
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Russell Moore
Staff Writer
Wallace State Community College
P.O. Box 2000, Hanceville, AL 35077
1-866-350-9722 256-352-8443 direct
Visit us online at www.wallacestate.edu
Kristen Holmes
Communications & Marketing Director, and
Administrator, The Evelyn Burrow Museum
Wallace State Community College
801 Main Street NW | Hanceville, AL 35077
E-mail: kristen.holmes@wallacestate.edu
Office: 256.352.8118 | Cell: 256.339.2519 | Toll Free: 866.350.9722