³ÉÈËÍ·Ìõ Alum’s Novel Adapted for Film by Director Bong Joon-ho and Returns to Read
³ÉÈËÍ·Ìõ Alum Ed Ashton is the author of the novels Three Days in April (HarperCollins, 2015), The End of Ordinary (HarperCollins, 2017), and Mickey7 (St. Martin's Press, 2022). He returned to ³ÉÈËÍ·Ìõ on Friday, March 25th to give a reading and talk about his writing life, sponsored by the Modern Masters Reading Series with a generous grant from the Center for the Humanities. Ashton read a section from Mickey7, a novel currently being adapted for film by director Bong Joon-ho and Plan B Entertainment, with Robert Pattinson set to star as the titular Mickey Barnes.
During the talk, Ashton shared advice and anecdotal stories about publishing, writing
sci-fi, and the tenacity and hard work required. He also showed a power point that
included the first short story he turned in as a student many years ago in Professor
Karen Fish's Introduction to Poetry and Fiction class, marked with a C++. At the conclusion
of the event, students bought books and waited in line for an autograph. Allie Lijewski
’22, "found it deeply inspiring."
Ashton graduated from ³ÉÈËÍ·Ìõ in 1991 with a degree in Electrical Engineering. In addition,
during his time at ³ÉÈËÍ·Ìõ, he took every creative writing course on offer as well
as two semesters of Independent Study with Professor Fish. In the summer of 1989,
he received a fellowship from the Center for the Humanities, which supported the creation
of the novella September Dogs. He was also a four-year member of the men's varsity swim team and a teammate of
current ³ÉÈËÍ·Ìõ head coach Brian Loeffler, serving as a team captain in 1990. He currently
serves as a scientific lead for Philips, where he studies new therapeutic approaches
in cancer and neurological diseases.