'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' Author to Make First Stop on U.S. Speaking Tour at Baylor

September 26, 2005

Punctuation abusers beware: Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, is coming to Central Texas. The Baylor University Libraries are hosting Truss at the fourth annual Ferguson-Clark Author Series at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, in Waco Hall.
Truss, a former literary editor, television critic and sports columnist for The Times of London, wrote three comic novels and numerous radio plays before taking on punctuation. Despite some publishers' misgivings about the success of a book explaining the proper placement of apostrophes, Truss' dry wit, combined with confessions such as correcting a comic strip's punctuation before clipping it, struck a chord.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves (the title comes from a badly punctuated wildlife manual) hit No. 1 on Britain's bestseller lists and then did the same when it came to the United States. The book spent 45 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has been honored with the British Book Award and USA Today's Book of the Year.
"We've had exceptional crowds at our past lectures and hope for even more this year," said John Wilson, director of library advancement and special projects. "Truss is very engaging, witty and fun."
Proceeds from the lecture will benefit the Crouch Fine Arts Library.
"With equipment that needs updating and furniture that is vintage 1968, we'd like to improve this heavily used area so it can be a destination for studying, listening to operas, researching sculpture or preparing for a music appreciation exam," Wilson said.
Baylor alumnus Collen A. Clark established the lecture series endowment in honor of his mother, Carla Sue Ferguson Garrett, a Baylor alumna and a member of the libraries' board of advisors.
Lecture sponsors include Clark, Central National Bank and the Waco Tribune-Herald at the Managing Editors' level, and Ted and Sue Getterman, Bill and Kathy Wardlaw, Baylor Department of Journalism, Community Bank & Trust, Wells Fargo Bank and the Waco Hilton at the Copy Editors' level.
Tickets are on sale now. Patrons, for $50, will have reserved seating and be invited to attend the reception and book signing after the lecture. General admission is $15, Baylor faculty and staff tickets are $10 and student tickets are $5. Purchase tickets online at www.baylor.edu/librarygifts/authortickets or by calling (254) 710-7249. For information about lecture T-shirts, visit www.baylor.edu/lib/gifts/truss.
For additional information, contact John Wilson, director of library advancement, at (254) 710-3457.