Reporter

Hire Heroes event.

Veterans seeking employment may want to visit Central Park Hall Dec. 4 to attend a job fair sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The event, at 4503 E. 21st St., begins at 10am and is open to military spouses as well as military members.

Despite their service, male veterans 18 to 24 sometimes struggle to find jobs, with national statistics pegging the unemployment rate for this group at 29.1 percent in 2011 -- more than 10 percent higher than non-veterans of the same age.

The "Hiring Our Heroes" event requires employers to register at HOH.greatjob.net. Job seekers are also advised to register, though walk-ins will be allowed to attend the event as space allows.

The "Hiring Our Heroes" effort was launched by the chamber in March 2011, according to Sept. 30 report from the organization.

Through September, close to 15,000 veterans have been hired through chamber job fairs, according to the report.

The report also noted that while monthly unemployment rates for veterans have been ticking downward more than 1 million veterans will leave active duty and enter the workforce over the next five years.

Publication Date for Tulsa Novel Set.

Former Tulsan Benjamin Lytal may put his hometown in the national literary spotlight based on buzz about his forthcoming debut novel. Penguin Books, publisher of A Map of Tulsa, has announced a March 26 release date for a book set in the art scene of late-'90s Tulsa.

The plot involves a love story of sorts. On one end is a young man at home from college, Jim Praley, who might be a bit of a loner based on the publisher's description: "He drives the highways. He forces himself to get out of his car and walk into a bar."

The woman he meets, Adrienne Booker, would seem to have a contrasting personality; she's described as "a high-school dropout with a penthouse apartment," someone who "rules Tulsa, in her way."

The story may play out as something of an homage to the city. "Through her eyes, he will rediscover his hometown: its wasted sprawl, the beauty of its late nights, and, at the city's center, the unsleeping light of its skyscrapers," the publisher's note states, going on to describe the novel as "elegiac, graceful, and as much a story about young love as it is a love letter to a classic American city."

The book has already won praise from some well-celebrated authors, including Dinaw Mengestu, author of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears and winner of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant." Mengestu heaped high praise on A Map of Tulsa, according to the publisher's notes, describing it as "a glorious and exquisitely crafted work of art, one that poignantly brings to life all the joy and heartbreak of youth with compassion, grace, and wisdom."

Lytal, a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, has written for the Wall Street Journal, the London Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times and Bookforum, among other publications. He lives in Chicago.