A Conversation with Phil Klay
Phil KlayAuthor and Iraq War veteran
Scott D. MoringielloDePaul University
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cosponsored by the Committee on Creative Writing and the Seminar Coop Bookstore
In this informal conversation, Phil Klay and Scott Moringiello (DePaul University) will discuss how literature helps us reflect on themes of brutality, faith, fear, and morality to deepen our understanding of faith and humanity. In 2014, Phil Klay was awarded the National Book Award Prize for Redeployment, a collection of short stories that takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned.
Phil Klay is a graduate of Dartmouth College and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He served in Iraq’s Anbar Province from January 2007 to February 2008 as a Public Affairs Officer. After being discharged, he went to Hunter College and received an M.F.A. His story “Redeployment” was originally published in Granta and is included in Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Granta, Tin House, and elsewhere. In 2014 Klay’s short story collection Redeployment won the National Book Award for Fiction. He was also shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor Prize and named a National Book Foundation ’5 Under 35′ honoree. In 2015 he received the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation's James Webb award for fiction dealing with U.S. Marines or Marine Corps life, the National Book Critics’ Circle John Leonard Award for best debut work in any genre, the American Library Association’s W. Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction, the Chautauqua Prize, and the 2015 Warwick Prize for Writing.
Scott D. Moringiello is Assistant Professor in the Department of Catholic Studies at DePaul University, where he teaches classes on Catholic theology and religion and literature. He holds a PhD in Theology from the University of Notre Dame, an MPhil from the Divinity Faculty at the University of Cambridge, and a BA in Philosophy and Classics from Williams College. His research interest include religious themes in contemporary literature and the history of biblical exegesis.
