As part of the 2 1/2-month, multi-library Big Read revolving around The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien’s seminal book about the Vietnam War, two area novelists and a poet share their different wartime perspectives and how their experiences shaped their approaches to writing.

The University of Central Missouri’s Matthew Eck drew from his Army service in Somalia in writing his award-winning novel The Farther Shore. H.C. Palmer, a retired physician who served as a battalion surgeon in Vietnam, recently finished his first book of poetry, Feet of the Messenger. And University of Missouri-Kansas City assistant professor Whitney Terrell, who twice embedded with troops as a journalist in Iraq, made that war the setting of his well-received 2016 novel The Good Lieutenant.

This event is a featured program of the fall 2017 Big Read KC. For more related programs at the Kansas City Public Library, visit kclibrary.org/bigread.

Find more regional events, activities, and resources at bigreadkc.org.

The NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.