Requiem for the Living: A Reading and Book Signing with Jeff Metcalf

Ken Sanders Rare Books is pleased to announce a reading and book signing wirth Jeff Metcalf, celebrating the release of his new book Requiem for the Living: A Memoir, starting at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, October 29th at our downtown bookstore (268 South 200 East, SLC, UT). This event is free and open to the public.

An award winning writer and teacher, Jeff Metcalf lives in Salt Lake City, Utah where he teaches literature and playwriting in the English Department at the University of Utah. Metcalf is the recipient of the 53rd Utah Arts Council Award for the Essay, 2014 Distinguished Teacher Award, 2008 Career Teaching Award from the University of Utah, the Huntsman Award for Excellence in Education, a Fulbright Memorial Scholar Award, the National Council of English Teachers Award, the Lifetime Advocacy Award from Writers @ Work, grants from both the Utah Humanities Council and the Utah Arts Council and numerous other teaching awards.

Metcalf’s new autobiography and memoir is called Requiem for the Living. After nine years of keeping his prostate cancer at bay. The drugs were no longer working. The doctors told him his time was nearly up. Jeff Metcalf used this diagnosis as motivation to dive deeper into writing, tasking himself to write one essay each week for a year. His collection of fifty-two essays was chosen by the Utah Division of Arts and Museums as the winner of their 2012 Original Writing Competition. Requiem for the Living contains the best of these essays, selected and reworked by the author, who continues to defy his medical prognosis.

The essays form a memoir of sorts, recounting good times and critical moments from Metcalf’s life. Often funny, sometimes moving, profoundly personal, they draw from Metcalf’s rich experience. He does not describe a life defined by cancer but writes to discover what his life has been, who he has become, and what he has learned along the way. Ron Carlson, author of A Kind of Flying, says, “This is a truly unusual book! What Jeff Metcalf has accomplished in his collection of essays is to write an intimate and frank book about a life well lived. It is a dear and personal book that increases the supply of affection in the world and adds mightily to our shared kindness. Requiem for the Living is a memoir with a unique wavelength—it should be on everyone’s night stand.”

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