The Reading Series
1905 - 2009: Celebrating 105 Years of Creativity
Fall 2009 Centennial Plus Five Reading Series
- 9/10 Centennial Reading
- 9/16 Cornell Writers on Cornell Writers
- 9/24 Centennial Reading
- 10/1 Centennial Reading
- 10/15 Epoch Celebrates - the publication and its people
- 10/21 Rhythm and Reading
- 10/30 CSMA Community Reading
- 11/5 Centennial Reading
- 11/12 Centennial Reading
Since 1905 when Cornell University first taught creative writing courses as part of the English Department’s curriculum, some of America's most important writers and poets have graduated or taught at Cornell in the last fifty years. Among the writers who walked within the walls of Goldwin Smith are E.B. White, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, A.R. Ammons, Vladimir Nabokov, Lorrie Moore, Susan Choi, Pulitzer Prize winners Alison Lurie and Junot Díaz, and Nobel Laureates Toni Morrison and Pearl Buck. The Creative Writing Program is pleased to announce its Fall 2009 Centennial Plus Five Reading Series. We will be celebrating 105 years of creativity throughout the 2009 calendar year, highlighting our famous but also lesser-known writers and to underscore the significant contribution Cornell University’s Creative Writing Program has had in American and World literatures.
ALL EVENTS ARE FREE and open to the public.
These events are made possible by the generosity of two anonymous donors who are alumni of Cornell University.
Go to the new Writers at Cornell blog to listen to J.Robert Lennon’s interviews with our visiting writers: www.writersatcornell.com
September 10th Centennial Reading
- Susan Choi, David Friedman, and Charity Ketz
- When: Thursday 4:30 pm
- Location: Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall
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- Susan Choi, Fiction Writer
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Susan Choi was born in South Bend, IN and grew up in Houston, TX. Her second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She is also the author of The Foreign Student, winner of the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, and the co-editor with David Remnick of the anthology Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, she was born in 1969 and lives in Brooklyn.
- David Friedman, Poet
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David Friedman was born and raised in Washington, D.C. He was educated at Cornell (B.A., English) and Columbia (M.A., English Literature). Friedman has worked in recent years as a teacher in the field of adult education. Friedman won the 2004 National Poetry Series open competition, selected by Pulitzer Prizewinner Stephen Dunn. Friedman’s book, The Welcome, was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2006 and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He will be signing copies of the book and copies of a chapbook of recent poems.
- Charity Ketz, Poet
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Charity Ketz was born in Roanoke, Virginia and grew up in State College, Pennsylvania. She received her B.A. from Penn State University, an M.F.A. from Cornell University, and has held lectureships at both universities. Her poems have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Colorado Review, Quarterly West, Beloit Poetry Journal, New Orleans Review, and others. Her first book of poems, The Narcoleptic Yard, published by Black Lawrence Press (2009), won second place for the Hudson Prize/The Ontario Prize. She has previously published a chapbook, Locust in Bloom, through Poets Corner Press and has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. She is currently a PhD student in English Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.
September 16th Cornell Writers on Cornell Writers
- When: Wednesday 4:30 pm
- Location: Goldwin Smith 258, Goldwin Smith Hall
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- Featuring
- Alison Lurie on E.B. White
- Robert Morgan on James McConkey
- Emily Rosko on Phyllis Janowitz
September 24th Centennial Reading
- Sharon Bryan, Gina Franco and Richard Price
- When: Thursday 4:30 pm
- Location: Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall
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- Sharon Bryan, Poet
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Sharon Bryan began to write poetry seriously when she was at Cornell. After completing three years of graduate study in the Anthropology department there and receiving an MA, she began sitting on poetry workshops. The first was from A. R. Ammons, the next from William Matthews. She first read a poem of her own aloud in the Temple of Zeus. Her books include Salt Air, Objects of Affection, Flying Blind, and Sharp Stars.She currently teaches as a Visiting Poet at UConn/Storrs. She has also taught at: the University of Washington, Memphis State University, Dartmouth, the University of Houston, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo College, Ohio University, San Diego State, and Fresno State. She has also taught in two low-residency MFA Programs, Warren Wilson and Rainier Writing Workshop. She has received two NEA Fellowships in Poetry and an Artist Trust grant from the Washington State Arts Council.
- Gina Franco, Poet
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Gina Franco’s collection of poems, The Keepsake Storm, was published by the University of Arizona Press Camino del Sol Latina/o Literary Series in 2004. Her work appears in numerous journals and anthologies, including Black Warrior Review, BorderSenses, Copper Nickel, Crazyhorse, Fence, The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Seneca Reveiw, Tuesday; an Art Project, Zone 3, A Best of Fence: the First Nine Years, and The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry. She received an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Robert Chasen Poetry Prize, the Corson-Bishop Poetry Prize, and the 2006 Bread Loaf Meralmikjen Fellowship in Poetry. She divides her time between Galesburg, Illinois, where she teaches English and creative writing at Knox College, and the Arizona desert where she grew up.
- Richard Price, Fiction Writer and Screenwriter
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Richard Price is the author of seven novels, including Clockers, Freedomland, and Samaritan. He has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and shared a 2007 Edgar Award as a cowriter of HBO’s miniseries The Wire.
October 1st Centennial Reading
- Toni Morrison
- When: Thursday 7:30 pm
- Location: Bailey Hall
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- An Evening with Nobel Laureate Ms. Toni Morrison
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Toni Morrison is the Robert F. Goheen Professor of the Humanities, Emerita at the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University.
Her nine major novels, The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, Love and A Mercy have received extensive critical acclaim. She received the National Book Critics Award in 1978 for Song of Solomon and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Beloved. Both novels were chosen as the main selections for the Book of the Month Club in 1977 and 1987 respectively. In 2006, Beloved was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as the best work of American fiction published in the last quarter-century. In 1993 Ms. Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. - FREE admission. Ticket is required.
Tickets are available at Willard Straight Ticket Office starting Sept. 1.TICKETS ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE, SORRY.
October 15th Epoch Celebrates - the publication and its people
- Michael Koch, Manuel Muñoz, and Lydia Peelle
- When: Thursday 4:30 pm
- Location: Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall
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- Manuel Muñoz, Fiction Writer
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Manuel Muñoz is the author of two collections of short stories: The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue, published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 2007, and Zigzagger, published by Northwestern University Press in 2003. A recipient of a Whiting Writers Award in 2008, Manuel was a finalist for the 2007 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize and the recipient of a Constance Saltonstall Foundation Individual Artist’s Grant in Fiction, a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and a 2009 O.Henry Prize for a short story. His work has appeared in 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, Manuel graduated from Harvard University and received his MFA in creative writing at Cornell University. He is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Arizona at Tucson, where he is at work on a novel.
- Lydia Peelle, Poet
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Lydia Peelle was born in Boston. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, One Story, Epoch, The Sun, Orion, and elsewhere, and has won an O. Henry Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, and had been twice featured in Best New American Voices. Her debut story collection, Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, will be published by Harper Perennial in July 2009. A former fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Virginia, she now lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
October 21st Rhythm and Reading
- H.G. Carillo, J. Robert Lennon, and Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon
- When: Wednesday 7:30 pm
- Location: Barnes Hall
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- A blend of writing, voice and instrumentation featuring:
- H.G. Carillo, Fiction Writer
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H.G. Carillo is the author of Loosing My Espanish, a novel published by Pantheon Books and in paperback from Anchor Books. His short stories have appeared in Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, Glimmer Train, Ninth Letter, Slice and other journals and publications. Carrillo lives in Washington, DC, where he is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at The George Washington University. He is currently at work on a novel.
- J. Robert Lennon, Fiction Writer
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J. Robert Lennon is the author of six novels, including Castle, Mailman and The Light of Falling Stars, and a story collection, Pieces for the Left Hand. His stories have appeared in the Paris Review, Granta, Harper’s, Playboy, and the New Yorker. He lives in Ithaca, New York, where he teaches writing at Cornell University.
- Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Poet, and friends With Johnny Dowd and Richie Stearns
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Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon is Assistant Professor of English at Cornell University. She is the author of ] Open Interval [, Black Swan, winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and coauthor, with Elizabeth Alexander, of the chapbook, Poems in Conversation and a Conversation. Her poems have appeared in African American Review, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Rattapallax, Shenandoah, and in several anthologies including Bum Rush the Page and Role Call
October 30th CSMA Community Reading
- When: Friday 7:30 pm
- Location: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Community School of Music and Art, 330 E. State St.
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- Featuring short readings by over 20 local noted Fiction Writers and Poets
- Tea Obreht
- Helena Viramontes
- Emily Rosko
- Catherine Taylor
- Kate Sullivan
- Matt Grice
- Nicholas Kowalczyk
- Jamie Warburton
- Sarah Scoles
- Ernesto Quiñonez
- Daniel Schwarz
- Lamar Herrin
- Edwar Hower
- Chrisopher Kempf
- Nancy Viera Couto
- Irakli Kakabadze
November 5th Centennial Reading
- Sana Krasikov, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, and Angela Shaw
- When: Thursday 4:30 pm
- Location: Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall
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- Sana Krasikov, Fiction Writer
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Sana Krasikov was born in the Ukraine and grew up in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and in the United States. A graduate of the Iowa WritersÞ Workshop, she is a recipient of an O. Henry Award and a Fulbright scholarship. She is the author of One More Year, a collection of stories published by Random House. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The Virginia Quarterly, Epoch, Zoetrope, and A Public Space. Krasikov has won the 2009 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for her debut short story collection, One More Year (2008, Spiegel and Grau). Krasikov was one of five finalists for the $100,000 Sami Rohr Prize, one of the largest literary prizes in the world. She lives in New York City.
- Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Fiction Writer
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Rattawut Lapcharoensap is the author of Sightseeing, a collection of short stories, which was selected for the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" program, won the Asian American Literary Award, and was also shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His stories have appeared in Granta, Zoetrope: All-story, Best New American Voices, and Best American Non-Required Reading, among others. In 2007, Granta named him on its list of “Best of Young American Novelists.”
- Angela Shaw, Poet
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Angela Shaw was born in New Jersey and raised in West Virginia. She earned a B.A. in English Literature from Swarthmore College and an M.F.A. from Cornell University. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, as well as fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Poetry, Field, Chelsea, Pleiades, and Indiana Review and have been anthologized in The Beacon Best of 2001 (Beacon Press), The Best American Poetry series, and The New Young American Poets (Southern Illinois University Press). Her first collection of poetry, The Beginning of the Fields, was published in June 2009, by Tupelo Press. Angela has taught creative writing at Cornell University, Swarthmore College, and Haverford College. She lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.
November 12th Centennial Reading
- Alice Fulton and Kenneth McClane
- When: Thursday 4:30 pm
- Location: Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall
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- The Richard Cleaveland Memorial Reading
- Alice Fulton, Poet
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Alice Fulton is the author of eight books, including The Nightingales of Troy: Connected Stories and Cascade Experiment: Selected Poems. She has received fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her book Felt was awarded the Bobbitt Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress. Her other poetry books include Sensual Math, Powers of Congress, Palladium, and Dance Script With Electric Ballerina. An essay collection, Feeling as a Foreign Language: The Good Strangeness of Poetry, was published in 1999. Fulton’s poetry and fiction have been chosen for The Best American Poetry, The Best American Short Stories, and Pushcart Prize anthologies. In addition to Cornell, she has taught at The University of Michigan, Berkeley, and UCLA.
- Kenneth McClane, Poet
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Kenneth McClane is the author of seven poetry collections-Out Beyond the Bay; Moons and Low Times; At Winter’s End; To Hear the River; A Tree Beyond Telling: Poems Selected and New; These Halves Are Whole; Take Five: Collected Poems, 1971-1986-and two books of personal essays, Walls: Essays 1985-1990 and Color: Essays on Race, Family, and History. His poetry and essays have appeared in many anthologies, including The Best African American Essays; The Art of the Essay; Bearing Witness: Selections from African-American Autobiography in the Twentieth Century; The Anatomy of Memory; Sturdy Black Bridges; Visions of Black Woman in Literature; The Jazz Poetry Anthology; Cavalcade; You’ve Got to Read This; and Trouble the Water: 250 Year of African-American Poetry. His essay “Walls” was selected for The Best American Essays 1988 and The Best American Essays (college edition) volumes. He is the W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature and a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University.
» For further information about the Fall 2009 Centennial Reading Series or about on-campus parking, contact Laurel Guy at lrg29@cornell.edu or call (607) 255-6800.