A Literary Coup for Lecture Series

Jane Smiley, whose Iowa-set novel “A Thousand Acres” won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, will launch the spring edition of Manuscripts, the Newport Beach Public Library Foundation’s literary lecture series.

Smiley will discuss her most recent novel, “Moo,” which was nominated last year for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

She is, says the New York Times Book Review, “fast becoming the Balzac of the late 20th-Century American Midwest.”

The author, who teaches creative writing at Iowa State University, will speak at noon on April 10 at Newport Beach Central Library.

While the novel for which Smiley was awarded the Pulitzer in 1992 was grounded in farming, “Moo” is a farcical look at a Midwest university.

“She is probably the most versatile writer that I’ve ever seen,” says Irvine Valley College professor Marjorie Luesebrink, who will serve as moderator for Smiley’s talk. “She actually changes her subject matter, her style, her technique and even her tone from book to book. It’s a stunning display of virtuosity.

“ ‘Moo,’ of course, is this hilarious romp and highly ironic. On the other hand, ‘A Thousand Acres’ is almost elegiac: It’s a meditation on land and being and families.”

Also on tap at the library this spring:

* Victor Villasenor, whose new novel, “Wild Steps of Heaven,” is the second in the Oceanside author’s trilogy on his Mexican American heritage;

* Richard W. Selby, an associate professor of information and computer science at UC Irvine, who is co-author of “Microsoft Secrets: How the World’s Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets and Manages People”;

* Geoffrey Wolff, the new director of the fiction portion of UCI’s graduate program in writing and an acclaimed writer of fiction and nonfiction, who will discuss his rite-of-passage novel “The Age of Consent.”

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The twice-a-year Manuscripts series is well on its way to realizing the library foundation’s goal of bringing respected authors to Newport Beach.

The idea began brewing over coffee one morning early last year.

Foundation board members Kelley Boero and Lizanne Witte, who met while working on the grand opening of the new central library the year before, were talking about ways to promote the library and maintain member interest in the foundation. Witte, formerly of San Francisco, brought up the author series sponsored by the San Francisco Public Library.

Why not, she suggested, offer a similar series in Newport Beach?

A lecture series would give the public an opportunity to hear authors discuss their books and it would promote the library in the process. They could recruit West Coast authors to speak. And because Los Angeles is so close, they could convince publishers to add Newport Beach to their authors’ national book-tour itineraries.

Recalls Boero: “We just went for it.”

In a “trial run” last spring, author Carolyn See generated a near-capacity audience in the library’s 150-seat meeting room to hear her discuss her autobiography, “Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America.”

Then, last fall, the four-part “Manuscripts” series debuted.

Says Witte: “It’s like the baseball field [in ‘Field of Dreams’]: If you build it, they will come.”

Boero and program co-chair Witte see the library’s twice-a-year series as an alternative to the celebrity-oriented monthly Round Table West author luncheons at the Balboa Bay Club.

“I think what we’re trying to do is bring a little more of a literary voice,” says Boero, adding that she wants to see the series provide “the same kind of stimulating environment for book lovers as art museums provide for art lovers.”

Not that they’re pigeonholing the series, she says.

Selby’s “Microsoft Secrets,” after all, is a business book--and to reach out to the business community, his talk at the library will be a 7:30 breakfast meeting.

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To build interest in the series, it is being promoted throughout the area. Brochures have been sent to 1,500 people on the library foundation list and to others, including those involved in writing programs offered through UCI extension, Chapman University and Golden West, Orange Coast and Coastline community colleges.

Unlike the San Francisco Public Library, which contracts with a private firm to line up authors, Boero and Witte have been doing all the legwork themselves.

They wrote to publicists at the major New York publishing houses, requesting copies of their spring catalogs. This time they were able to include last fall’s brochure in their letters to publishers. “Having some sort of track record really helps,” Boero says.

Because the foundation cannot afford to pay an author’s travel expenses, Boero says, they look for authors who will be touring the West Coast at the same time as the series. (Proceeds from ticket sales, she says, basically cover only the cost of printing and mailing.)

So far, though, they haven’t had to look far for most of their authors: Joining Lisa See (“On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of a Chinese-American Family”) for last fall’s series were Orange County authors Jay Gummerman (“Chez Chance”), John Gobbell (“The Last Lieutenant”) and Irwin Gellman (“Secret Affairs: Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull and Sumner Welles”).

And this spring they’ve got Selby and Wolff of UCI.

Boero and Witte view landing Jane Smiley as a major coup.

Luesebrink, who teaches writing and literature at Irvine Valley College, will introduce Smiley and moderate a question-and-answer session.

“She’s an enormously magnetic person, which is always a surprise because you hardly ever see larger-than-life people,” says Luesebrink, who heard Smiley read from “A Thousand Acres” at the Miami Book Fair. “I’d read her books but never heard her read before. She was so impressive.”

Boero and Witte, who are always on the lookout for potential speakers, hope to develop a series of such a high caliber that publishers will recognize it as an important literary stop.

“It would be really nice to be able to have publishers approach us,” Boero says.

Luesebrink says she’s impressed that the library foundation has initiated an author series.

“This is just a wonderful venue for us to bring writers to Orange County and involve the community in some of the best writing going on,” she says.

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The Newport Beach Public Library Foundation’s spring literary lecture series, Manuscripts, opens next week:

* April 10, Jane Smiley.

* April 27, Victor Villasenor.

* April 30, Richard W. Selby.

* May 4, Geoffrey Wolff.

The lectures will be at the Newport Beach Central Library, 1000 Avocado Ave. General Tickets are $5 for foundation members and $8 for nonmembers. To preregister, call (714) 717-3890.