Author Talk: SPSCC Professor Michael Shurgot

Orca Books is delighted to welcome Northwest author and retired SPSCC Professor Michael Shurgot, author of numerous works of literary criticism. He will be reading from his new memoir “Could You Be Startin’ from Somewhere Else?”

Like all memoirs, Michael W. Shurgot’s “Could You Be Startin’ From Somewhere Else? Sketches from Buffalo and Beyond”–is a kaleidoscopic mixture of memory and history. The title is the punch line from an Irish joke the author’s mother told every St. Patrick’s Day. The obvious answer to the question is “No”; no one can start from somewhere else. With this as his premise, Shurgot explores his early years growing up in a middle-class, multi-ethnic neighborhood in Buffalo, NY from the late 1940s to the early 1960s to find the roots of his adult life.