Newberry College Hosts Gerding Author Series Featured Speaker Danny Gardner

The Newberry College annual Gerding Author Series will feature Danny Gardner, author of, “A Negro and an Ofay,” on Thursday, Oct. 19, at 7 p.m., at the Newberry Opera House (1201 McKibben St, Newberry). The event is free and open to the public. The author also will meet with students on Friday, Oct. 20, to discuss his work and answer questions from the College’s aspiring writers.

Gardner has enjoyed careers as a comedian, actor, director and screenwriter. His first novel, "A Negro and An Ofay" is newly published by Down And Out Books and his creative non-fiction piece, “Forever. In An Instant,” is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee.

Gardner’s short fiction piece, "Labor Day," appeared in "Beat to a Pulp," and his flash fiction piece, "You’re That Guy," was featured in "Out of the Gutter." His short fiction will appear in a Johnny Cash-inspired crime anthology, "Just to Watch Them Die,” by Gutter Books and in “The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir," edited by Gary Phillips, and published by Three Rooms Press. Gardner lives in Los Angeles by way of Chicago, Ill.

The Gerding Author Series is hosted by the Newberry College Department of Humanities and is made possible by a grant from the Gerding family. 

About the Book:

In 1952, after a year on the run, disgraced Chicago Police Officer Elliot Caprice wakes up in a jailhouse in St. Louis. His friends from his hometown secure his release and he returns to find the family farm in foreclosure and the man who raised him dying in a flophouse. Desperate for money, he accepts a straight job as a process server and eventually crosses paths with a powerful family from Chicago’s North Shore. A captain of industry is dead, the key to his estate disappeared with the chauffeur, and soon Elliot is in up to his neck. The mixed-race son of Illinois farm country must return to the Windy City with the Chicago Police on his heels and the Syndicate at his throat. Good thing he’s had a lifetime of playing both sides to the middle. 

Praise for the Book:

“’A Negro and an Ofay’ forces us to look into the brutal mirror of our past in the hope we might understand our future. With his sharp as a whip crack writing, Gardner may just change the world.” 

—Paul Bishop, author of Lie Catchers

“Hard-boiled don’t get much harder than this. Danny Gardner hits all the right notes, but with enough swagger and voice to make it completely his own. Elliot Caprice is a fantastic character, stuck between two worlds—black and white, good and bad—and I really hope to see more of him.”

—Rob W. Hart, author of South Village. 

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ABOUT NEWBERRY COLLEGE:  Newberry College is a private, residential, co-educational college with a diverse student population. Founded in 1856 by the Lutheran Church, Newberry College appears in the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings for regional colleges in the South: Best Colleges (#17); Best Value (#7); and Least Debt at Graduation (3). Newberry College offers baccalaureate degrees in 32 majors, 29 minors, 31 areas of concentration and 10 pre-professional programs, and recently launched an online degree-completion program. The College offers 20 NCAA Division II sports, cheerleading and dance. Newberry College is accredited by The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the National Association of Schools of Music. For more information, go to www.newberry.edu