The following events will take place at 7 p.m. in the Hatfield Room of Willamette’s Mark O. Hatfield Library, and all are free and open to the public:
September 30: An Evening with Fiction Writer Manuel Muñoz
Muñoz, who writes about Chicano/a communities in California’s Central Valley, is the author of two collections of short stories: Zigzagger (Northwestern University Press, 2003) and The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007), which was shortlisted for the 2007 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. He is a recipient of a 2008 Whiting Writers' Award and a 2009 PEN/O. Henry Award for his story "Tell Him About Brother John." Muñoz is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Rush Hour, Swink, Epoch, Glimmer Train, Edinburgh Review, and Boston Review, and has aired on National Public Radio's Selected Shorts. A native of Dinuba, California, Muñoz graduated from Harvard University and received his MFA in creative writing at Cornell University. He currently teaches in the University of Arizona’s creative writing program.
October 12: The Art of Playwriting with Andrea Stolowitz
Andrea Stolowitz is a graduate of the MFA playwriting program at the University of California San Diego. She has had her plays developed and presented at many venues including The Cherry Lane (NYC), The Old Globe (SD), The Long Wharf (CT), New York Stage and Film (NY), and Portland Center Stage (OR). Her play KNOWING CAIRO had its professional world premiere at The Old Globe Theater (San Diego) where it earned a San Diego “Billie” Best New Play Award and was named as an LA Times Critic’s Pick. It has had subsequent national and international productions and is published by Playscripts Inc. TALES OF DOOMED LOVE premiered in Washington, DC at The Studio Theater as part of the 2008 Fringe Festival where it was called “one of the finest entries in the Capital Fringe” by DC Theater Scene. The production was remounted in 2008 at DC’s Spooky Action Theater. The play was also read at the StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance (Chapel Hill, NC) where it was named “best new script” by the Triangle Independent. Her latest play BAD FAMILY was workshopped this summer (2009) as part of the JAW Playwrights Festival at Portland Center Stage. Stolowitz currently teaches at Willamette University and the University of Portland, and has served on the theater studies faculty at Duke University and UC-San Diego.
December 1: New Voices Showcase: Poet Keetje Kuipers & Fiction Writer Elissa Minor Rust
Keetje Kuipers is a native of the Northwest. She earned her B.A. at Swarthmore College and her M.F.A. at the University of Oregon. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Oregon Literary Arts, and Soapstone, as well as awards from Atlanta Review and Nimrod. In 2007 she completed her tenure as the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident, which provided her with seven months of solitude in Oregon's Rogue River Valley. She used her time there to complete work on her book, Beautiful in the Mouth, which was awarded the 2009 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and was published in March 2010 by BOA Editions. It contains poems currently published or forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, West Branch, Willow Springs, and AGNI, among others. Kuipers has taught writing at the University of Montana and is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.
Elissa Minor Rust lives and works in Portland, Oregon and is proud to call herself a Northwest writer. She teaches writing and literature at Portland Community College, and publishes fiction and nonfiction in national literary magazines and anthologies. Her short story collection, The
Prisoner Pear: Stories From the Lake, was published in December 2005 by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice pick.
*Special event sponsored by the English Department, the American Studies Program, and the Willamette Florence Program, in memory of Adele Birnbaum and Bill Braden,
Professors of English.*
November 17, 8 p.m., Hudson Hall, Rogers Music Center: Billy Collins, Poems and Remarks
Former Poet Laureate of the United States, Collins is one of our country’s best-known and best-loved poets. He is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, including Ballistics (2008), She Was Just Seventeen (2006), The Trouble with Poetry (2005); Nine Horses (2002); Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (2001); Picnic, Lightning (1998); The Art of
Drowning (1995), which was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Questions About Angels (1991), which was selected by Edward Hirsch for the National Poetry Series; The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988); Video Poems (1980); and Pokerface (1977).
*Special Event is also free and open to the public, and seating is first-come, first-served.
