JUNE SKINNER SAWYERS
A native of Glasgow, Scotland, June Skinner Sawyers is a writer and editor who is also an adjunct lecturer in the humanities at the Newberry Library in Chicago. She is the author of Tougher Than The Rest: The 100 Best Bruce Springsteen Songs (Omnibus Press) and Celtic Music: A Complete Guide (Da Capo Press, 2001) and is the editor of several literary anthologies, including The Road North: 300 Years of Classic Scottish Travel Writing (Neil Wilson, 2000) and Dreams of Elsewhere: The Selected Travel Writings of Robert Louis Stevenson (Neil Wilson, 2002) and several music anthologies: The Best in Rock Fiction (Hal Leonard, 2005), Racing in the Street: The Bruce Springsteen Reader (Penguin, 2004) and the Read the Beatles: Classic and New Writings on the Beatles, Their Legacy, and Why They Still Matter (Penguin).
June also lectures and conducts presentations on various subjects. From 1996 to 2003, she participated in the Illinois Humanities Council Speakers Bureau program, giving talks and slide shows at colleges, libraries, and genealogical societies across the state. Among the institutions she has addressed include Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario; Chicago Architecture Foundation; Chicago Cultural Center; University of Toronto; Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois; and the Greenwich House in Greenwich Village. Most recently, she presented a paper on spiritual longing in the music of Bruce Springsteen at "Glory Days," the first-ever Springsteen conference in New Jersey in September 2005 and, in November 2005, was the guest speaker at the Illinois Women's Press Association Book Fair.
Lecture Topics
- Here, There, and Still Everywhere: The Beatles and Why They Still Matter
- The Beatles mean different things to different people and, perhaps most significantly, different things to different generations. June Sawyers, editor of Read the Beatles, discusses why they are still relevant.
- Ten Songs that Matter and Why They Can Change Your Life
- Can a song actually change a life? Change your life? Author and editor June Sawyers thinks so and explains how.
- Orphans and Widows: Adventures in the Literary Trade
- You have to be tough nowadays to survive life in the literary world. June Sawyers has been an orphan and has survived bankruptcy, a fire, and a hurricane -- all from a literary perspective. She offers survival tips for those hardy souls with a deep-seated desire to be a writer.
- Tongue Tied and Twisted
- Few things are as socially debilitating as a stutter. But what happens when you stutter and suffer from shyness? As an author and editor of 17 books, June Sawyers has had to overcome this devastating combination. Here, she discusses how she did it and how you can do it too.
Contact the lecture bureau to schedule June Skinner Sawyers for your next event.
the lecture bureau 
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