All readings will take place in Room 138 of the Dwight Schar Building and are free and open to the public. Readings begin at 4:30 p.m. followed by refreshments with a master class at 5:30 p.m. For more information, contact Joe Mackall 419-289-5142 or Sarah Wells 419-289-5957.
SAMRAT UPADHYAY
March 31, 2008
Samrat Upadhyay is the first Nepali-born fiction writer writing in English to be published in the West. His first book, the short story collection ARRESTING GOD IN KATHMANDU (Houghton Mifflin, 2000; Houghton Mifflin Mariner Books paperback, 2001) has been translated into French and Greek and was the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, given annually by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation to emerging poets and fiction writers who display "exceptional talent and promise." ARRESTING GOD IN KATHMANDU was also a selection in the Fall 2001 Barnes & Noble Great Writers Program. Upadhyay's stories have been read live on National Public Radio and published widely as well as in SCRIBNER'S BEST OF THE WRITING WORKSHOPS, edited by Sherman Alexie, and BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 1999, edited by Amy Tan.
Upadhyay's second book, the novel THE GURU OF LOVE, was published in January 2003 by Houghton Mifflin and given starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and The Library Journal and named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year 2003 and a finalist for the 2004 Kiriyama Prize, which is awarded in "recognition of outstanding books that promote greater understanding of and cooperation among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia." THE GURU OF LOVE was released in paperback by Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin in 2004. Upadhyay has also co-edited the anthology SECRET PLACES: NEW WRITING FROM NEPAL (University of Hawai'i Press), published in Winter 2001 as a special issue of Manoa magazine.
Upadyhyay's recent story collection, THE ROYAL GHOSTS (Houghton Mifflin), has been called "stories of breathtaking lucidity" by Booklist. The Los Angeles Times marks him as "among the smoothest and most noiseless of contemporary writers," and The Indiana Express calls the book "highly entertaining" and Upadhyay "a major writer-in-the-making."
DINTY MOORE
April 14, 2008
Dinty W. Moore is the author of the forthcoming memoir Between Panic & Desire (University of Nebraska Press/American Lives).
His other books include The Accidental Buddhist (Algonquin), Toothpick Men (Mammoth Press), The Emperor’s Virtual Clothes (Algonquin), and the writing guide, The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction (Longman/Pearson).
He has published essays and stories in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Harpers, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Arts & Letters, Gettysburg Review, Utne Reader, Crazyhorse, and many other venues.
Moore edits the on-line nonfiction journal BREVITY. He is also coordinating editor for the anthology The Best Creative Nonfiction (W.W. Norton, 2007), and will continue in this role for the forthcoming 2008 edition. Moore serves on the editorial board of Creative Nonfiction magazine, and edited the anthology Sudden Stories: The Mammoth Book of Miniscule Fiction. He teaches at Ohio University.
STEPHEN HAVEN
April 21, 2008
Stephen Haven is Director of the Ashland University MFA Program and Professor of English at Ashland University. His book of poems, The Long Silence of the Mohawk Carpet Smokestacks, was published by West End Press in 2004. His chapbook of collaborative translations from contemporary Chinese poetry, The Enemy in Defensive Positions, was published by Poetry Miscellany Chapbooks in 2008. Haven’s memoir, The River Lock: One Boy’s Life Along the Mohawk, is forthcoming from Syracuse University Press in the spring of 2008. He is also the author of one other collection of poems, Dust and Bread, published by Turning Point in 2008.
Haven is the editor of The Poetry of W.D. Snodgrass: Everything Human (University of Michigan Press), and co-editor of two anthologies of contemporary poetry.
Haven's poetry and essays have appeared in Crazyhorse, American Poetry Review, Salmagundi, Image, Western Humanities Review, The Missouri Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and in many other journals. He has an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from New York University, where he wrote his dissertation under the direction of Harold Bloom. Haven has been a repeat fellow at Yaddo and MacDowell, twice a Fulbright Lecturer in American Literature (poetry) at universities in Beijing, and has won four individual artist fellowships, and one residency grant (at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center), from the Ohio Arts Council.
ERIC PANKEY
April 28, 2008
Eric Pankey is the author of six collections of poems. His first collection, For the New Year, was selected as the winner of the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American poets and published by Atheneum in 1984. In 1988, Atheneum published his second collection, Heartwood, which was reissued by Orchises Press in 1998. His next three collections were published by Alfred A. Knopf: Apocrypha in 1991, The Late Romances in 1997 and Cenotaph in 2000. In 2003, Ausable Press published his sixth book, Oracle Figures and will bring out his seventh book, Reliquaries in 2005. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in such journals as Antaeus, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Iowa Review, The New Republic, The Partisan Review, and The Kenyon Review. His work has been supported by fellowships from John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for Arts and The Ingram Merrill Foundation. He teaches poetry workshops and courses on Modern and contemporary poetry at George Mason University.