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Creative Writing Program
 

Creative Writing Program Reading Series

The Creative Writing Program sponsors an annual Distingushed Writers Reading Series, a program through which internationally known writers deliver readings and lectures that are generally followed by a book signing. Included in this series is the John William Proctor Distinguished Author Reading, an annual event made possible by the family of John William Proctor who established an endowment in his memory. All events are free and open to the public.

Past Visitors
John Updike, Wole Soyinka, Joan Didion, Peter Carey, Tony Kushner, Adrienne Rich, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Oliver Sacks, Mark Strand, Michael Cunningham, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Levine, Terry Tempest Williams, Charles Simic, Charles Wright, Elaine Pagels,Timothy Seibles, and Richard Rodriguez.

September 24, 2009 | 7:30 p.m. |Reynolds Alumni Center

Vivian Gornick

Vivian Gornick is a critic, essayist, and memoirist. Her numerous books include The Men in My Life (2008 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism), The Situation and the Story (2002), The End of the Novel of Love (1997), Approaching Eye Level (1996), Fierce Attachments (1987), Women in Science: 100 Journeys into the Territory (1983), Essays in Feminism (1978), and The Romance of American Communism (1977). For many years she wrote for the Village Voice. Recently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, she currently teaches writing at The New School. Photo credit: Esther Hyneman, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux

October 15, 2009| 7:30 p.m. |Reynolds Alumni Center

Diane Glancy

Diane Glancy is a novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, and essayist. She is the author of fourteen short-story collections and novels including The Dance Partner: Stories of the Late 19th Century Ghost Dance (2005), Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea (2003), Trigger Dance (1990), Firesticks (1993), and Pushing the Bear: A Novel of the Trail of Tears (1996). Included among her thirteen collections of poems are Asylum in the Grasslands (2007) and Rooms: New and Selected Poems (2005). She is known for works in which she uses realistic language and vivid imagery to address such subjects as spirituality, family ties and her identity as a person of mixed blood. Recipient of numerous honors including the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, the Cherokee Medal of Honor, the Oklahoma Book Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships (1990 and 2003), and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, she is assistant professor of English at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.


Bruce Bond's reading originally scheduled for October 29th has been cancelled.

 

November 17, 2009 | 7:30 p.m.| Reynolds Alumni Center

Tomaz Salamun

Considered Slovenia’s greatest living poet, Tomaz Salamun’s numerous awards include the Preseren Fund Prize, the Jenko Prize, a Pushcart Prize and the European Prize for Poetry by German town Münster. His work has been translated into nineteen languages and nine of his thirty-seven books have been published in English, the most recent ones being The Book for My Brother (Harcourt, 2006, translated by Christopher Merrill and others); Poker (Ugly Duckling Press, 2003, 2008, translated by Joshua Beckman); Row (ARCpublications, 2006, translated by Joshua Beckman); and Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008, translated by Brian Henry). His There's the Hand and There's the Arid Chair, translated by MU’s own Thomas Kane, was published by Counterpath Press earlier this year. Photo credit: Blue Flower Arts, Inc.

February 18, 2010| 7:30 p.m. |Reynolds Alumni Center

Nick Flynn

Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award and was shortlisted for France’s Prix Femina; it has been translated into thirteen languages. He is also the author of two books of poetry, Some Ether and Blind Huber for which he received fellowships from, among other organizations, The Guggenheim Foundation and The Library of Congress. Recipient of an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University, he teaches at the University of Houston. Photo credit: Blue Flower Arts, Inc.

March 23, 2010| 7:30 p.m. | Reynolds Alumni Center

Stuart Dybek
John Williiam Proctor Distinguished Author

Stuart Dybek is the author of three short story collections, numerous anthologized works of short fiction, and two books of poetry. His work has won numerous awards, among them a Lannan Prize, a PEN/Malamud Award, a Whiting Writers' Award, a Guggenheim, and numerous O. Henry Prizes. His work has been included in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Poetry. On September 25, 2007, Dybek was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, the "Genius Award" that gives individuals selected for "extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits" a $100,000 grant annually for five years. One day later, he was awarded the 2007 Rea Award for the Short Story, a $30,000 annual prize given for "originality and influence on the genre." Mr. Dybek is visiting MU as the John William Proctor Distinguished Author.

April 22, 2010| 7:30 p.m | Location to be Announced

Julie Buchsbaum

 

 

 

Award-winning poets Julie Buchsbaum and Joanie Mackowski are alums of MU’s Creative Writing Program. Buchsbaum is the author of Slowly, Slowly, Horses and A Little Night Comes, recipient of the Del Sol Press Award. Mackowski’s first book, The Zoo, received both the AWP Award Series in Poetry and the Kate Tufts Discovery Prize. Her second book, View from a Temporary Window, is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Joanie Mackowski