Visiting Author: John Price

John T. Price reads from his stories. Photo by Jaci Olson

By: Jaci Olson

On Monday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m. humorist and nature writer, John Price visited Waldorf, sharing from his very entertaining nature essays. Price was in the Luise V. Hanson Library until 8:30 p.m. as part of the Waldorf Distinguished Visiting Writer Series. He is the award-winning author of three Midwestern nature memoirs.

The Waldorf Literary Review is teaming up to help out with the event. Literary Review board member, Jeremy Navarro says, “He is one of the first writers I’m excited to meet. He and I share similar interests because of the huge thing we cover in our bio classes. I’m in botany right now, and there’s just a micro-fraction of original tall grass prairies left in Iowa because of farming. Iowa is the perfect place for this, and I like how he incorporates that in his writing. I want to, in the future, incorporate nature into my writing, and the nice thing about this kind of writing is that they are informative, and you can also read them for pleasure, too.”

Navarro is interviewing Price. He said,”I’m not really nervous, I’m more excited than anything. I have this voice in my head I get when he writes that he has a slight sense of humor, and that’s the only thing I’m worried about. I’ve talked to writers in the past where they’re not super well known, and I’m more nervous about having to introduce him, [Because] I don’t know anything personal about him except what we read in his memoir.”

Navarro described Price’s successes. “The thing that really stuck out to me when I was looking him up is in 2009, he was the winner of O’Ryan Magazine’s Choice Award for his A Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships memoir, which I feel could really relate to a bunch of people here in the Midwest, because if we think about it there aren’t many people who stray from home in their whole lives. O’Ryan Magazines quotes coming back to nature and that is something I’m really interested in,” said Navarro.

Literary Review board member Nick Heimerman said, “I am a part of the Waldorf Literary Review, which is a sponsor of the series. I have been a part of promoting the event on Facebook and our website. I am excited to attend the event and to hear his stories. We read one in our class meeting, and it was very interesting.”

With high hopes, the Literary Review will attend the event on Oct. 24.