Since then she has written 27 books, and continues to write at the rate of about one book per year.

From her trenchcoat-wearing, cigarette-smoking days as a first-year at Brown University to her elopement to California, she told a number of stories about her personal life.

For example, she said she "went to college by somewhat fraudulent means."

In high school, she said, she wrote a poem that received an 'A' in class. Her high school teacher entered the poem to a national contest, which she won.

But, Lowry explained, her teacher had actually added a line to the end of the poem, deepening its meaning.

Nonetheless, she entered Brown University hoping to study writing.

"I had become quite pretentious as a college freshman," she said. "I talked a lot about Freud and T.S. Eliot, neither of whom I had ever heard of before that year."

Audience members praised Lowry's lecture afterwards.