Novelist Tim Dorsey’s Visit To Barton Coincides With Release of New Book on Oct. 25

WILSON, N.C. — Get a peek into the wacky world of deadly yet endearing psychotic serial killers, frenetic Florida road trips, and meet the various and sundry oddball characters created by novelist Tim Dorsey. On the day of his newest book’s release Dorsey will be the featured speaker at the Barton College Friends of Hackney Library fall dinner scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 25. The evening’s festivities, to be held in Hardy Alumni Hall, will begin with a book signing and wine reception at 6 p.m., followed by dinner and the program at 7 p.m.

Tickets for the dinner event are $35 per person, with reservations accepted through Oct. 21. Members of the Barton College Friends of Hackney Library may reserve tickets for $30 per person. Table reservations must be for a total of eight persons. Please contact Cynthia Collins at 399-6503 or fohl@barton.edu for reservations or additional information.

Titles including: “Florida Roadkill,” “Hammerhead Ranch Motel,” “Orange Crush,” “Triggerfish Twist,” “The Stingray Shuffle,” “Cadillac Beach,” “Torpedo Juice,” “The Big Bamboo,” “Hurricane Punch,” “Atomic Lobster,” “Nuclear Jellyfish,” “Gator A-Go-Go,” and “Electric Barracuda,” are just part of Dorsey’s offbeat charm for countless readers of his books. His newest publication is a Christmas novel, “When Elves Attack: A Joyous Christmas Greeting from the Criminal Nutbars of the Sunshine State,” to be released on Oct. 25. Next in his line-up “Pineapple Grenade,” scheduled for release in January 2012.

A former journalist with 14 novels featuring manic serial killer Serge Storms under his belt (and another on the way), Dorsey writes in the vein of Carl Hiaasen reminiscent of Elmore Leonard, but with his own distinctive voice. The series featuring Storms is composed of a set of hilarious yet violent farces taking place in various Florida locales. The “Chicago Tribune” has called Dorsey’s characters “some of the most wacky villains and situations since Hiaasen stuck a plastic alligator down a stranger’s throat and called it Tourist Season.”  The “Dallas Morning News” has called his work “wildly funny, maniacally disrespectful and genuinely out of control.”  “The New York Times” characterizes Dorsey’s novels as “vulgar, violent and gaudier than sunsets on the Keys….”  And, referring to fans’ anticipation of Dorsey’s next work, the “Miami Herald” says simply, “There ought to be a law:  If it’s summer, we get a new Tim Dorsey novel.”

Dorsey was born in Indiana but moved to Florida at age one, growing up in the small town of Riviera Beach, about an hour north of Miami. He got his journalistic start at Auburn University, where he was editor of the student newspaper, “The Plainsman.”  For four years after graduation, he served as a police and courts reporter for the Alabama Journal, the now-defunct evening newspaper in Montgomery, Ala. He then moved to the “Tampa Tribune, where he held a variety of positions, including general assignment reporter, copy desk editor, political reporter (in the paper’s Tallahassee bureau), night metro editor and night news coordinator. He left the paper in August 1999 to write full time and has since had 13 novels published in several languages.

Dorsey makes his home in Tampa, Fla., with his family.

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Questions?  Contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.