An Evening with Erik Larson

Erik Larson, historian and author of a half dozen international best sellers, will be the History Center's Distinguished Speaker Series special guest for 2023 when he sits down with WITF-FM's Scott LaMar Tuesday, April 18, at the Appell Center for the Performing Arts.

Larson is a master of narrative non-fiction. His vividly written books have won several awards and been published worldwide. “Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania,” about the 1915 sinking of the ocean liner Lusitania, was No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. “In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin” is a vivid portrait of the American ambassador and his family in Berlin during the first years of Hitler’s reign from which Larson has crafted a gripping, deeply intimate narrative. His critically acclaimed book “The Devil in the White City” intertwines the stories of the Chicago 1893 World’s Fair and one of America’s worst serial killers. It remained on the New York Times best-seller lists for a combined total of more than six years, won an Edgar Award for nonfiction crime writing, was nominated for the National Book Award, and was voted one of the 125 most important books of the last 125 years by the New York Public Library.

Erik Larson graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied Russian history, language and culture. He also received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. After a brief stint at the Bucks County Courier Times, Larson became a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, and later a contributing writer for Time magazine. He has written articles for The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New Yorker, and other publications.