The annual Hemingway Distinguished Lecture is presented each July, honoring the month of Ernest Hemingway’s birth and death. The event celebrates the power of words and the creative spirit in a landscape that Hemingway loved.

This year, The Community Library welcomes LUIS ALBERTO URREA: hailed by NPR as a “literary badass” and a “master storyteller with a rock and roll heart,” Urrea is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph.

A 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, Urrea is the critically acclaimed and best-selling author of 17 books, including “Good Night, Irene” (2023), “The House of Broken Angels” (2018), “Into the Beautiful North” (2009), “The Hummingbird’s Daughter” (2005), and “The Devil’s Highway” (2004).

Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, Urrea is most recognized as a border writer, though he says, “I am more interested in bridges, not borders.”

Urrea attended the University of California at San Diego, earning an undergraduate degree in writing, and did his graduate studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder. After serving as a relief worker in Tijuana and a film extra and columnist-editor-cartoonist for several publications, Urrea moved to Boston where he taught expository writing and fiction workshops at Harvard. He also taught at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

The lecture will be presented outdoors on the Library’s Donaldson Robb Family Lawn. Registration opens May 1 to reserve a seat.