New College Alumna Alicia Thompson among Featured Authors at St. Pete Times Festival of Reading

New College of Florida is proud to announce that alumna Alicia Thompson has been selected as one of the featured authors for the 17th Annual St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading.  Thompson was selected in recognition of her debut novel Psych Major Syndrome (Hyperion Books, 2009).

The festival, which takes place each year in the Bayboro Harbor area of downtown St. Petersburg, is scheduled to be held on Saturday, October 24, from 10 am-5 pm.

Thompson, who graduated from New College in 2006 with an AOC in psychology and who is currently working on an MFA in fiction writing from the University of South Florida, wrote Psych Major Syndrome while pulling all-nighters working on her senior thesis.

The novel, released in August 2009, explores the life of first-year college student Leigh Nolan as she traverses the murky and often confusing waters of college life. Issues of self-doubt, procrastination, concern over how her parents will react to her newly “independent” lifestyle, sexual desire and frustration are all woven humorously yet insightfully into the tale.

Thompson is currently working on a second novel, which in an interview with Ypulse e-zine, she says will also have a psychology-based theme. “Abby Greene for President” and “Stealing Mark Twain” both appeared in Girls’ Life magazine.

For more information on Alicia Thompson’s new book Psych Major Syndrome, visit the Disney Hyperion Books website.  Or, to learn more about the 17th Annual St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading, visit festivalofreading.com.