"Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere" Book Reading & Discussion Takes Place Tomorrow, March 5 at UMass Dartmouth
UMass Dartmouth English Faculty member Lucas Mann will read from his highly acclaimed memoir Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere, tomorrow, Wednesday, March 5, at 1:00 p.m., at UMass Dartmouth's Liberal Arts Building, Room 110. The author's first book, which chronicles the author's extensive time spent during the 2010 minor league baseball season in Iowa with the Single-A Clinton Lumber Kings and their devoted fans, will be released in paperback version March 11.
"I grew up playing baseball with my father, and I played in high school and for a couple of years in college, so I knew there was a treasure trove of personal nostalgia that I had attached to the game. I thought it might be interesting if a team would let me hang around," offered Mann. "Then when I went to Clinton, Iowa, the town where the book is set, it was just so vivid. I wanted to know what kind of stories played out in a setting like that."
Mann tells the story of minor leaguers fighting for a shot in the big leagues, their coaches who have dedicated their life to the game, and the small town who roots for them. The author also digs deep into himself as a lifelong baseball fan and the reasons why we as fans, whether it be for love of the game or something else entirely, invest in that which we have no control over.
Following its publishing, the book received notable praise, including earning a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Mann teaches classes in creative writing, journalism, and professional writing in UMass Dartmouth's Department of English and Professional Writing Master's program. He earned his M.F.A. from the University of Iowa, where he was an Arts Fellow and a Provost's Visiting Writer in Nonfiction. His essays and stories have appeared in Gawker, Wigleaf, The Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, The Nation and The Rumpus, among others, and he has received the Columbia Journal Award for creative nonfiction.