Fall 2009 Department Calendar
| Wednesday, September 30 |
Reading by Cheeni (Srinivas) Rao, author of "In Hanuman's Hands" and founder of the Iowa Book Doctors -- will read from his acclaimed memoir/novel that weaves together Hindu mythology and autobiography in order to tell his story of drug addiction and recovery on the streets of Chicago. Combining the magic realism of a Maxine Hong Kingston with Nelson Algren's world of substance abuse and petty crime, Rao's story spans 2,000 years of history as the sagas of his Indian ancestors find new expression in the U.S. of Rao's birth. [Here's a page on him with links to a video and more: http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/28037/Cheeni Rao/index.aspx] 7:00 PM, Hatfield Room in the Hatfield Library |
|---|---|
| Thursday, October 1 |
Rao & the Iowa Book Doctors. Writers at Work Series: Conversations between visiting writers and Willamette students about the vocation of the writer--what it means to live to write and to write to live. Sponsored by the Lilly Project for the Exploration of Vocation. 4:00 PM, Ford Hall 222 |
| Tuesday, October 13 |
Reading by Karen Karbo, author of three adult novels: Trespassers Welcome Here, The Diamond Lane, and Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me, all of which were named New York Times Notable Books. She is also the author of three books in the Minerva Clark mystery series for children: Minerva Clark Gets a Clue (2005), Minerva Clark Goes to the Dogs (2006), and Minerva Clark Gives Up the Ghost (2007). Karbo was awarded the 2004 Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction for The Stuff of Life. [She has a great website: http://www.karenkarbo.com/] 7:00 PM, Eaton 209 Karbo: Making a Living as a Writer. Writers at Work Series: Conversations between visiting writers and Willamette students about the vocation of the writer--what it mans to live to write and to write to live. Sponsored by the Lilly Project for the Exploration of Vocation. 4:00 PM, Ford Hall 222 |
|
Tuesday, October 20 |
Reading by Kevin Sampsell, author of several collections of short fiction, including Beautiful Blemish and Creamy Bullets; he is also the editor of Portland Noir and The Incomniac Reader. His memoir A Common Pornography is coming out with Harper Perennial in early 2010. [http://www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/sampsell.html] 7:00 PM, Eaton 209 Sampsell: My Life at Powell's. Writers at Work Series: Conversations between visiting writers and Willamette students about the vocation of the writer--what it means to live to write and to write to live. Sponsored by the Lilly Project for the Exploration of Vocation. 4:00 PM, Ford Hall 2 |
Thursday, November 5 |
Reading by Jeff Vandermeer, "author of the best-selling City of Saints and Madmen, set in his signature creation, the imaginary city of Ambergris, in addition to several other novels from Bantam, Tor, and Pan Macmillan. He has won two World Fantasy Awards, an NEA-funded Florida Individual Writers' Fellowship, and, most recently, the Le Cafard cosmique award in France and the Tahtifantasia Award in Finland, both for City of Saints. He has also been a finalist for the Hugo Award, Bram Stoker Award, IHG Award, Philip K. Dick Award, and many others. Novels such as Veniss Underground and Shriek: An Afterword have made the year's best lists of Amazon.com, The Austin Chronicle, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Publishers Weekly among others. His work, both books and short stories, has been translated into over twenty languages. The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases may be his most famous anthology, and is considered a cult classic, still in print along with his Leviathan original fiction series." (Wikipedia entry) Vandermeer will read from Finch, just published by Underland Press. 7:00 PM, Eaton 209. With publisher Victoria Blake: the new publishing world: the internet, graphic novels, tie-ins, animations. Writers at Work Series: Conversations between visiting writers and Willamette students about the vocation of the writer--what it means to live to write and to write to live. Sponsored by the Lilly Project for the Exploration of Vocation. 4:00 PM, Ford Hall 222 |
Wednesday, November 18
|
Reading by Brenda Hillman, one of America's leading poets and professor at Saint Mary's College, Moraga, CA. She is the author of seven volumes of poetry--Practical Water (2009), Pieces of Air in the Epic (2005), Cascadia (2001), Loose Sugar (1977), Bright Existence (1993), Death Tractates (1992), Fortress (1989) White Dress (1985), all with Wesleyan UP--and numerous poems in such magazines as New Yorker, McSweeney's, Gulf Coast, New American Writing, and others. Hillman has edited an edition of Emily Dickinson's poetry for Shambhala Publications and, with Patricia Dienstfrey, has co-edited The Grand Permission: New Writings on Poetics and Motherhood (2003). A recipient of numerous awards, Hillman has received fellowhips from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others. She is a committed activist and links her poetry to her activism on her Saint Mary's website, [http://galileo.stmarys-ca.edu/bhillman/]. She is most connected with the anti-violence group, Code Pink, but also works with several other organizations. Hillman's presentations are exactly about her vocation as a poet and activist: she blends reading with reflection, ties the writing of poetry to a life of civic engagement and responsibility. There are links to some poems at her website as well. Co-sponsored by the Lilly Project for the Exploration of Vocation. 7:00 PM, Cone Chapel |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|