96-04-24 John Jakes to Address June Grads

JOHN JAKES TO ADDRESS SPRING QUARTER GRADUATES AT OHIO STATE

     COLUMBUS -- Commencement exercises for spring quarter 
graduates of The Ohio State University will be held June 7 in 
Ohio Stadium.  Some 5,300 degrees will be awarded in the 
ceremonies, which begin at 9:30 a.m.

     The commencement speaker will be author John Jakes.  A 1954 
Master of Arts graduate of Ohio State in American literature, 
Jakes has been called the "godfather of historical novelists" 
by the Los Angeles Times and has published 200 short stories and 
some 60 books.

     Born in Chicago in 1932, Jakes began writing professionally 
during his freshman year at Northwestern University.  He enrolled 
in the creative writing program at DePauw University, where he 
graduated in 1953.  From 1954 to 1960, Jakes worked for Abbott 
Laboratories as a copywriter and as a product promotion manager.  
In 1960-61, he worked as a copywriter for Rumrill Company, an 
advertising agency in Rochester, N.Y.  He worked as a freelance 
writer of advertising copy until 1965, when he was employed as a 
senior copywriter for the Kircher, Helton & Collett advertising 
agency in Dayton. 

     Jakes left advertising in 1971 and began writing full-time.  
His first major success was the Kent Family Chronicles, an eight-
volume series published during the nation's bicentennial which 
was used to tell the story of America. Jakes made publishing 
history in 1975 by being the first author to have three books 
(Volumes II, III, and IV of the Chronicles) on the New York Times 
bestseller list within a single year.

     Between 1982 and 1987, Jakes published a trilogy about the 
Civil War, North and South (1982), Love and War (1984), and 
Heaven and Hell (1987), which was made into an ABC mini-series, 
one of the 10 highest rated miniseries of all time. Homeland 
(1993), the first of a new cycle of novels about a fictional 
family in the 20th century, became Jake's 13th consecutive New 
York Times bestseller and was named by the Times as one of its 
notable books of 1993.

     Jakes resides in Hilton Head Island, S.C., where he is a 
research fellow in the Department of History at the University of 
South Carolina.

                             #

Contact: Tracy Turner, University Communications, (614) 688-3682.


[Submitted by: Von Reid-Vargas (ereid@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
               
Wed, 24 Apr 1996 11:00:34 -0400]
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