Houghton Author to Speak at DNC

By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 8/26/2008 8:02:00 AM

Nathaniel Fick, author of One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin) will be a featured speaker at the Democratic National Convention Thursday evening before Barack Obama accepts the nomination. Fick’s speech will be broadcast on primetime TV. 

Fick served as an infantry officer and then as an elite Recon Marine; he saw action in Afghanistan and Iraq before leaving the Corps as a captain. He is now a fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C. On Thursday evening, Fick will talk about his belief that Obama has the best shot of ending the wars on terms favorable to the U.S.

Houghton published One Bullet Away in 2005. PW called the book, which won a B&N Discover award, a “candid and fast-paced memoir,” and Rolling Stone writer Evan Wright’s provocative Generation Kill (now an HBO series) was based on his travels with Fick’s unit. Mariner published One Bullet Away as a $14.95 paperback in 2006. Lori Glazer, v-p, executive director of publicity at HMH, said the house has alerted booksellers to the news and overnighted books to the press room at the convention.