Tag Archives: readings

Poet Rhett Iseman Trull to Read at Texas Tech April 12

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Poet Rhett Iseman Trull will give a reading at Texas Tech University on Thursday, April 12, 7:30-8:30 in English 001. A reception and book signing will follow the reading, with refreshments provided.

Rhett Iseman Trull’s first book of poetry, The Real Warnings (Anhinga Press, 2009), received the 2008 Anhinga Prize for Poetry, the 2010 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award, the 2010 Brockman Campbell Award, and the 2010 Oscar Arnold Young Award. Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2008, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and other publications. Her other awards include prizes from the Academy of American Poets and the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation. She received her BA from Duke University and her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she was a Randall Jarrell Fellow. She and her husband publish Cave Wall in Greensboro, North Carolina.

This is the third and final reading in this year’s Iron Horse Reading Series, sponsored by Iron Horse Literary Review, the Texas Tech University Department of English, and the Texas Tech University Graduate School.

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Memoirist Bonnie J. Rough to Read at Texas Tech March 29

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Bonnie J. Rough is the author of the new memoir Carrier: Untangling the Danger in My DNA (Counterpoint), winner of a 2011 Minnesota Book Award. Her essays have appeared in many magazines, literary journals, and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Sun, Huffington Post, The Iowa Review, Ninth Letter, Identity Theory, and Brevity. They have also appeared in several anthologies, including Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales of Desire, Deceit, and Devotion (Three Rivers Press), The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 1 (W.W. Norton), and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007 (Houghton Mifflin). Bonnie holds an MFA from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa. She has taught at The Loft Literary Center and is now an honored visiting artist on the faculty of the Ashland University MFA program. Her many awards include a Bush Artist Fellowship, a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Writers, and a Minnesota State Arts Board grant.

This is the second reading in this year’s Iron Horse Reading Series, sponsored by Iron Horse Literary Review, the Texas Tech University Department of English, and the TTU Graduate School.

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Fiction Writer Melanie Rae Thon to Read at Texas Tech February 16

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Photo by Andi Olson.

Novelist and short story writer Melanie Rae Thon will give a reading at Texas Tech University on Thursday, February 16, 7:30-8:30 in English 001.

Melanie Rae Thon’s most recent books include the novel The Voice of the River (FC2, 2011) and In This Light: New and Selected Stories (Graywolf, 2011). Her other novels are Sweet Hearts, Meteors in August, and Iona Moon, and she has also published two more story collections: First, Body and Girls in the Grass. Thon’s work has been included in Best American Short Stories (1995, 1996), three Pushcart Prize Anthologies (2003, 2006, 2008), and the O. Henry Prize Stories (2006). She is a recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award (1997), two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1992 and 2008), and a Writer’s Residency from the Lannan Foundation (2005). In 2009, she was Virgil C. Aldrich fellow at the Tanner Humanities Center. Thon’s fiction has been translated into French, Italian, German, Spanish, Croatian, Finnish, Japanese, and Farsi. Originally from Montana, Thon now lives in Salt Lake City, where she teaches in the Creative Writing and Environmental Humanities programs at the University of Utah.

This is the first reading in this year’s Iron Horse Reading Series, sponsored by Iron Horse Literary Review, the Texas Tech University Department of English, and the Texas Tech University Graduate School.

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Poets Christine Kitano, Jessicca Daigle Martin, and Ruben Quesada to Read at Texas Tech November 10

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Poets Christine Kitano, Jessicca Daigle Martin, and Ruben Quesada, all current PhD students in the Creative Writing Program at Texas Tech and current or former editors of Iron Horse Literary Review, will give a reading at Texas Tech University on Thursday, November 10, 7:30-8:30 in English 001.

 

Christine Kitano’s first book of poems, Birds of Paradise, was published in 2011 by Lynx House Press. A native of Los Angeles, she earned a BA from the University of California, Riverside and an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University.

 

Jessica Daigle Martin’s poetry chapbook is Always After Our Fall (Southeast Missouri State Press, 2011). She was the winner of So to Speak’s Winter/Spring 2009 Creative Nonfiction Contest, and finalist in Arts & Letters’  2010 Poetry Award, and Ruminate Magazine’s 2010 Poetry Award. She has been a writing fellow at the Ragdale Foundation and the Virginia Center of the Creative Arts.

 

Ruben Quesada’s first book of poems is Next Extinct Mammal (Greenhouse Review Press, 2011). He holds an MFA from University of California, Riverside. His awards include residencies at Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Lambda Literary Foundation Retreat, Vermont Studio Center, and Napa Valley Writers’ Conference.

 

This is the third reading in this year’s Contemporary Authors Reading Series sponsored by the TTU Creative Writing Program.

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Poet Aracelis Girmay to Read at Texas Tech October 20

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Poet Aracelis Girmay will give a reading at Texas Tech University on Thursday, October 20, 7:30-8:30 in English 001.

Winner of the 2011 Isabella Gardner Award, Aracelis Girmay is the author of Kingdom Animalia (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2011). She was born and raised in Southern California, with roots in Puerto Rico, Eritrea, and African America. She is also the author of the collage-based picture book changing, changing, and the poetry collection Teeth, for which she was awarded a GCLA New Writers Award. Girmay has taught youth writing workshops in schools and community centers for the past ten years. She is assistant professor of poetry writing at Hampshire College, and also teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Drew University. Girmay is a Cave Canem Fellow and an Acentos board member.

This is the second reading in this year’s Contemporary Authors Reading Series sponsored by the TTU Creative Writing Program.

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Memoirist Irene Vilar to Read at Texas Tech October 6

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Author Irene Vilar. Photo by Gary Isaacs.

Author Irene Vilar will give a book reading and talk entitled “Unlucky Lucky Bodies: A Personal Account of Generational and National Trauma” on Thursday, October 6, 7:30-8:30 p.m., in English 001.

There will also be a Q&A session with Vilar on Thursday, October 6, 2:00-3:00p.m., in English 201.

Irene Vilar was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Her memoir The Ladies’ Gallery (Other Press, 2009, originally published in 1996) was a Philadelphia Inquirer and Detroit Free Press notable book of the year. Her latest memoir, Impossible Motherhood (Other Press, 2009), has been translated into many languages, is a bestseller in Italy, and won the 2010 IPPY gold medal for best memoir/autobiography. She is series editor of The Americas at Texas Tech University Press and a Guggenheim Fellow. Vilar is literary agent for Vilar Creative Agency, and co-agent in the U.S. for Ray-Gude Mertin Literary Agency, an agency specializing in Spanish, Latin American, and Portuguese authors.

These events are co-sponsored by the Comparative Literature Program, the Creative Writing Program, and the Department of English.

More information on the writer and her books can be found on her website.

Praise for Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict

“Impossible Motherhood is like a journey into a harrowing underworld but guided by Vilar’s gifts and her light we emerge in the end transformed, enlightened, and oh so alive.” -Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“Vilar does exactly what the best memoirists do: She tells us the truth about everything, even when the truth utterly confounds… Unsettling and complex and ultimately redemptive.” -The Oregonian

“An extraordinary memoir… [Vilar's] brutal honesty is haunting.” -Sunday Independent

Praise for The Ladies’ Gallery: A Memoir of Family Secrets

“Irene Vilar is a writer of extraordinary passion, erudition, and intelligence.” -Tobias Wolff

“Startling, raw, and affecting, a painful exercise in which memoir as therapy becomes memoir as art.” -Philadelphia Inquirer

“This memoir introduces us to a writer bound to make an impact… An autobiography as fantastic as any novel.” -Boston Globe

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Poet Sydney Lea to Read at Texas Tech September 22

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Young of the Year

Sydney Lea's latest book, Young of the Year (Four Way Books, 2011)

Writer Sydney Lea will visit the Texas Tech University campus on September 22. A question and answer session, open to students and the general public, will take place at 3:00 in English 301. Lea will read from his new book of poetry at 7:30 in English 001 (the basement auditorium); copies of the book will be available for purchase.

Sydney Lea’s ninth book of poetry is Young of the Year  (Four Way Books, 2011).  His book Pursuit of a Wound was finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; another volume, To the Bone, won the Poets’ Prize.  He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Fulbright Foundations, and has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in major literary journals as well as magazines ranging from The New Yorker to Sports Illustrated.  He is the founding editor of The New England Review, and has taught at Yale, Middlebury, Wesleyan, and Dartmouth.  His other work includes chairing a leadership committee of a campaign that conserved 350,000 acres of wilderness in northern Maine, and serving as Vice-President of Central Vermont Adult Basic Education.

Lea’s visit is the first in this year’s Contemporary Authors Reading Series from the TTU Creative Writing Program. More information on the writer and his books can be found at his website.

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