Sarah Vowell, author and NPR commentator, to speak Oct. 2
Author and social observer Sarah Vowell, known for her monologues and commentaries on the National Public Radio program “This American Life,” will speak on campus at 8 p.m. Oct. 2 for the President’s Lecture Series.

Her address, “A Partly Cloudy Patriot: An Evening with Sarah Vowell,” begins at 8 p.m. in the North Cafeteria of Webb Center. Vowell’s appearance is co-sponsored by the ODU Literary Festival. Her talk is free and open to the public.

A contributing editor for “This American Life” since 1996, Vowell has written about everything from her father’s homemade cannon and her obsession with the “Godfather” films to the New Hampshire primary and her Cherokee ancestors’ forced march on the Trail of Tears.

She has been a staple of the NPR program’s popular live shows around the country, for which The New York Times commended her “funny querulous voice and shrewd comic delivery.”

Following publication of her first book, “Radio On: A Listener’s Diary,” Newsweek named her “Rookie of the Year” for nonfiction in 1997, calling her “a cranky stylist with talent to burn.” About her best-selling third book, “The Partly Cloudy Patriot,” The Boston Globe proclaimed, “Her gift is one of cosmic inclusion – allowing the natural collision of intellect and personality, rigorous research and generational quirks.”