Join in a Great Conversation with Steven Bloom Join the University of North Dakota in a Great Conversation with author and professor Stephen G. Bloom, author of "Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America," at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 20, at the Chester Fritz Auditorium. As a guy who spent much of his career as a journalist, Stephen Bloom knows a good story when he hears one. And when he first heard about a community of Hasidic Jews that moved to the farming town of Postville, Iowa -- pop. 1,465 -- in 1987, his journalistic antennae shot up. Bloom authored "Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America," which tells the amazing story of what happens when an ultra-Orthodox Lubavitcher population moves to a small town in Iowa to run a glatt kosher processing plant. Postville has recently found its way back into the news with controversy at that same processing plant. Bloom is the co-author of the just-released book, "The Oxford Project," about which documentary film maker Ken Burns said, "This powerful, confessional book draws from the truth that so-called ordinary people, not those with bold-faced names, are actually heroes of our American drama." Bloom is also the author of "Inside the Writer's Mind," and the forthcoming nonfiction book, "Tears of Mermaids," a global detective story about pearls. A professor of journalism at The University of Iowa, Bloom is a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Dallas Morning News. Join us Oct. 20 for this incredible opportunity to engage in a Great Conversation with Bloom. This event is part of the UND 125th Celebration, and the Hagerty Lecture in Contemporary Media Issues. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit us online at 125.und.edu. -- Benjamin Klipfel, Marketing Coordinator, 125th Anniversary, benjamin.klipfel@und.edu, 701-777-0857