Ohio Wesleyan Professor to Read Sept. 17 From Her New Book, ‘Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder’
Amy Butcher, Ph.D.
DELAWARE, Ohio – Ohio Wesleyan University faculty member Amy Butcher will read from and sign copies of her critically acclaimed book, “Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder,” at 4 p.m. Sept. 17 in OWU’s Beeghly Library, 43 Rowland Ave., Delaware.
Butcher’s book, a nonfiction account of a college friend’s brutal stabbing of his ex-girlfriend, will be available for purchase at the event. New York Times reviewer Judy Blunt calls Butcher’s book “a tragic portrait of the turn of events that left one young woman dead and another forever changed.”
And Robin Hemley, author of “Do Over,” says “Visiting Hours” is “a mystery of the highest order, not merely a whodunit, as we know from the outset who killed whom, but a mystery of the human heart, exploring the ambiguous motivations of an otherwise gentle man who became a murderer and a young woman who couldn’t stop being his friend. A page turner for its pathos and gorgeous attention to language, a coming of age story like no other, Amy Butcher has written a story of no easy answers and unparalleled sensitivity.”
An excerpt of the book, “Reenacting,” earned the 2014 Iowa Review Award in nonfiction from guest judge David Shields, a New-York-Times-bestselling author of 16 books.
Butcher, M.F.A., assistant professor of English, joined the Ohio Wesleyan faculty in 2014 and teaches writing.
Her work also has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review online, Tin House online, The Iowa Review, Salon, Gulf Coast, Guernica, and Brevity, among others. She earned her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa and is the recipient of awards and grants from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, the Stanley Foundation for International Research, the Academy of American Poets, and Colgate University’s Olive B. O’Connor Creative Writing Fellowship.
Learn more about Butcher at www.amyebutcher.com and more about Ohio Wesleyan’s Department of English at https://www.owu.edu/academics/departments-programs/department-of-english/.
Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers 86 undergraduate majors and competes in 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Ohio Wesleyan combines a challenging, internationally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities to connect classroom theory with real-world experience. OWU’s 1,750 students represent 46 U.S. states and territories and 43 countries. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” listed on the latest President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, and included in the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review “best colleges” lists. Learn more at www.owu.edu.