APRIL7 EVENT PLANNED TO CELEBRATE JAMES JONES
AND "GREATEST GENERATION"    

Community members are invited to help pay tribute to the men and women of "the greatest generation" through an exploration of war-related works by Illinois author James Jones

"An Evening of Education and Exploration:  James Jones" will begin at 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, with a cocktail reception, and continue at 6 p.m. with a program featuring guest speaker Kaylie Jones, James Jones' daughter.  Both activities will take place at the Hoogland Center for the Arts (Club Room, Third Floor), 420 S. Sixth St., in Springfield, Illinois.  There is no admission charge.

Jones, a Robinson, Ill., native, served in the United States Army before and during World War II.  His wartime experiences, including witnessing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and later being wounded in action while in combat at Guadalcanal, inspired some of his most famous works, including From Here to Eternity and The Thin Red Line.

Kaylie Jones, an author in her own right, is best known for her third novel, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, which was made into a 1998 film starring Kris Kristofferson, Barbara Hershey and LeeLee Sobieski.  Her memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me, about growing up with her famous father and his thoughts about war, will be released in August. She also chairs the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, which awards $10,000 annually to an unpublished first novel.

The Springfield event is being co-sponsored by Eastern Illinois University (Charleston) and the James Jones Literary Society.  In 2007, the James Jones Chair in World War II Studies in English and History was initiated at EIU -- a development made possible due to a collaborative effort by the James Jones Literary Society and Eastern's College of Arts and Humanities and its departments of English and history.

Author Norman Mailer said at the time that "James Joyce is one of the few major American novelists to emerge here since the Second World War.  He was an immensely talented man, and I think it is a splendid idea to endow a chair in his name at Eastern Illinois University.  He would have grumbled, but I think it would have given him true pleasure."

The James Jones Literary Society, founded in 1991, is open to anyone interested in Jones' life and writings.  The society has nearly 400 members.  Society symposia are held every two years, with the next to be held in November on the EIU campus.

The society publishes the James Jones Journal, in addition to sponsoring fellowships and awards for new writers, including the James Jones Short Story Award, sponsored by the Illinois Center for the Book's Emerging Writers Competition.