Writer Janette Turner Hospital to speak at Thomas Cooper Society annual dinner

Award-winning novelist Janette Turner Hospital will speak at the Thomas Cooper Society’s annual dinner Thursday, April 17, and receive the society’s highest literary honor, the Thomas Cooper Medal.

Hospital, Distinguished Writer in Residence and English professor at the University of South Carolina, will speak at 7:15 p.m. at the Summit Club in downtown Columbia. The annual general meeting will begin at 6 p.m. with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. Tickets to the dinner, which must be reserved by Friday, April 11, are $60 per person and can be reserved by calling Maggie Bergmans at 803-777-3142.

Hospital will be the 14th recipient of the medal. Previous recipients of the medal, established in 1995, include Pat Conroy, Joseph Heller, James Dickey, John Updike, Dr. Matthew Bruccoli, William Styron, Ray Bradbury, George Plimpton, John Jakes, Derek Walcott, Joyce Carol Oates, Edward Albee and, most recently, the late Norman Mailer.

Hospital has written nine novels and four collections of short stories. Her latest novel, “Orpheus Lost,” was named to Booklist’s Top 30 novels of the year. Released last October by Harper Collins, the book is a retelling of the Orpheus legend in an age of international terrorism. “Orpheus Lost” also made the American Library Association’s Best 25 Books of the Year. Hospital will deliver a keynote address at the association’s annual convention in Los Angeles in June.

Her earlier novel, “Due Preparations for the Plague,” earned Hospital the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction in 2003 and the Davitt Award for Best Crime Novel by an Australian Woman in 2003 by Sisters of Crime, one of Australia’s largest literary societies. That same year, she was honored with Australia’s Patrick White Award for lifetime literary achievement.

She directs the university’s popular public lecture series, “Caught in the Creative Act,” which brings top writers to campus to give readings and discuss their writing. Salman Rushdie will appear April 9.

Hospital grew up in Queensland, Australia, and taught at universities in Australia, Canada, England, France and the United States before joining the University of South Carolina’s faculty and filling a post previously held by James Dickey. In 2003, Hospital was awarded the university’s Russell Research Award for Humanities and Social Sciences, an honor recognizing the most significant faculty contribution for research, publication, teaching and service in a given year.

The Thomas Cooper Society is the community organization for the University of South Carolina’s Thomas Cooper Library. Established in 1990, the organization provides support for the library’s literary collections and programs. Thomas Cooper, for whom the main library is named, was the second president of South Carolina College, a friend of Thomas Jefferson and himself a distinguished scientist and political economist.