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FULL STORY
According to Cory Marks, associate professor in the Department of English and director of UNT’s Creative Writing Program, the visiting writers are selected by the department’s creative writing faculty based upon students’ suggestions and the writers’ work.
“We’ve had a great deal of luck bringing people to UNT,” Marks said. “Our visiting writers are always enthused by the great turnout and that the students asking questions have read closely and intelligently.”
Yet, the students who attend the visiting writer’s readings are not exclusively English students. “The readings offer a different kind of encounter with literary art than most students usually have in their classes or with personal reading because it gives work a living voice,” Marks explained, “I think there’s something powerful about encountering a writer in the flesh – a living person this stuff has come from.”
Part of the Visiting Writers Series is an informal Q&A session that each writer will have with the public earlier in the afternoon. In these sessions “there’s no agenda. The writers just show up to talk and answer questions,” said Marks.
There is also a book signing after the reading, where students can meet the writer.
Kicking off this year’s series, on October 22, Linda Bierds will be reading. Linda’s poetry is known for its historically informed narrative. As Marks says, “Her body of work is engaged with the history of science and ideas… in my opinion, she’s one of the best American poets today.”
The second reading will be given on November 10 by Janisse Ray, as a part of the One Book, One Community Program. Her work resonates with the “green” agenda that UNT is embracing and her writing, focused on environmental and spiritual topics, serves to continue the conversation begun with Big Coal author Jeff Goodell's public lecture.
The series will take a hiatus until the spring semester, when it resumes with poet Henri Cole, who received his MFA from Columbia University. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Cole writes with “the self at the center of his work,” says Marks. Cole is slated to read on March 4, 2010.
The last visiting writer of the year, who will also read during the spring 2010 semester, has not yet been finalized.
All of the readings will take place at 8:00 p.m. Venue varies: the reading will be held in Gateway Ballroom 34 on Oct. 22; in Silver Eagle Suite A on Nov. 10; and the Golden Eagle Suite on Mar. 4, 2010. There will be an informal afternoon Q&A session, primarily for students, at 4:00 on the day of each reading. The Q&A sessions are held in room 212 of the Auditorium building. All events are free and open to the public.
For more information about the Visiting Writers Series, please contact Ruby Al-Qasem, creative writing assistant, at ruby_alqasem@yahoo.com.
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