Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation Author Series features Alexander Starritt

Credit: CONTRIBUTED

Credit: CONTRIBUTED

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation 2024 Author Series will feature Alexander Starritt, author of “We Germans,” in conversation with moderator Jordan Ritter Conn on Thursday, Oct. 10 at the David H. Ponitz Sinclair Conference Center at Sinclair Community College.

Starritt won the 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for fiction for “We Germans,” the story of an ordinary German soldier in World War II, as he comes to terms with his crimes and guilt in a letter written decades later to his grandson.

Credit: CONTRIBUTED

Credit: CONTRIBUTED

“We’re grateful that year over year, our previous honorees are eager to come back to Dayton and speak to area students,” said Peace Prize Foundation Executive Director Nick Raines, in a press statement. “Each year I’m impressed with how engaged the students are, and I’m impressed with the substance and thoughtfulness of their questions. They really get into it.”

Conn was the 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize nonfiction runner-up for “The Road to Raqqa.”

The Author Series’ Conversation with the Authors is an outgrowth of the Student Author Series, begun in 2010 to return former winners of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize to Dayton to meet with area high school students who are studying their books.

Launched in 2006, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize is the first and only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States. Inspired by the Dayton Accords which ended the Bosnian War, the annual Dayton Literary Peace Prize honors writers whose work “demonstrates the power of the written word to foster peace,” according to a press release. Winners receive a $10,000 cash prize, and the first runners-up receive a $5,000 cash prize.

In addition former President Jimmy Carter will receive this year’s Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. The esteemed list of past Holbrooke Award recipients include Geraldine Brooks (2010), Gloria Steinem (2015), Margaret Atwood (2020/2021), Wil Haygood (2022), and Sandra Cisneros (2023) among others.

The Author Series’ Conversation with the Author is open to the public and will begin at 6 p.m. with drinks and hors d’oeuvres before the authors take the stage at 6:30 p.m. Ticketsare $50 with a 50 percent discount for students and can be purchased online at daytonliterarypeaceprize.org/author-series-registration-2024/ or by check mailed to The Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, P.O. Box 461, Dayton, OH 45409-0461.

All proceeds from the event support the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation.

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