Award-winning novelist and CCNY alumnus Frederic Tuten
City College of New York literary luminaries Oscar Hijuelos ’75, ’84MA; Walter Mosley ’91MA, and Ernesto Quiñonez ’96, ’06MA; had a common link during their respective years at CCNY before embarking on highly successful writing careers: mentor and 1959 alumnus Frederic Tuten.
On Tuesday, Oct. 15, Tuten, an award-winning novelist, short story writer and critic, returns to City College for a reading and conversation with Quiñonez. Tuten will read from his latest book, “My Young Life: A Memoir” (Simon & Schuster, 2019) in Shepard Hall room 250.
The event, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m., is presented by the CCNY Division of Humanities and the Arts’ MFA in Creative Writing Program that Tuten co-founded and headed for 15 years. It is free and open to the public.
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Hijuelos – who died in 2013; Mosley and Quiñonez, some of the other renowned writers mentored by Tuten include:
• Salar Abdoh;
• Chiara Barzini;
• Amanda Filipacchi;
• Philip Graham;
• Aurelie Sheehan; and
• Iris Smyles.
Tuten is the author of five novels and a book of inter-related short stories. Click here for a complete bibliography.
His writing has earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction and he was the recipient of the Award for Distinguished Writing from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He’s also been awarded three Pushcart Prizes and one O. Henry Prize. Click here for his biography.
Tuten said of his time at CCNY: “Nothing in my life has been as profound in my formation as my being an undergraduate student at City College. I was so in love with City College I never wanted to leave, and so I didn’t, and taught there for more than thirty years. It has been central to my thinking and writing. And I still feel my deep indebtedness to the college.”
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its role at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.2% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. More than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight professional schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Jay Mwamba p: 212.650.7580 e:jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu View CCNY Media Kit.