Creative Writing Program welcomes author who studies multi-language learners on Jan. 30 at Gage

Posted: 01/20/2012

Michael Erard, author of Um…: Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean, will read from his new book Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners at 5 p.m. Monday, Jan. 30 in Roosevelt University’s Gage Gallery, 18 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago.

A journalist with linguistic training, Erard has visited multilingual cultures, viewed brain specimens, researched language barriers and followed hyper polyglots to understand how the brain can contain different languages and the techniques that are used by people to remember languages.

His latest book, Babel No More, describes the author’s journey around the world, searching to find people who can master many languages and it contains events, conversations and emotions Erard had in his dealings with hyper polyglots.

"I blame the author for a couple of sleepless nights because this is a guy who knows how to write a linguistic cliffhanger," raves co-host of WayWord Radio Martha Barnette, who believes Erard is "one of the few people who happens to know how to write a book about language that reads like a mystery."

Hosted by Roosevelt's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program, the event is free and open to the public. Erard is the first of a number of well-known guest writers who will be reading from their work at Roosevelt University this semester. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Book Review, Science, The Atlantic and many other journals.

For more information, contact Scott Blackwood, sblackwood@roosevelt.edu or for media interviews, contact Laura Janota at 312-341-3511.

Chicago 430 S. Michigan Ave.Chicago, IL 60605(312) 341-3500 Directions & Maps

Schaumburg 1400 N. Roosevelt Blvd.Schaumburg, IL 60173(847) 619-7300 Directions & Maps

Roosevelt Online http://www.roosevelt.edu/ruonline/