Enid Shomer and Thomas Larson Reading

The MFA program at Ashland University presents the summer residency's summer reading series. Enid Shomer, author of four books of poetry and two of fiction, and Thomas Larson, author of The Memoir and the Memoirist, each give readings on Wednesday, August 4 at 7 p.m. in Ronk Lecture Hall, Schar College of Education. This event is free and open to the public.

Thomas Larson

Thomas Larson is the author of The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative, Ohio University Press / Swallow Press, now in its third printing. He teaches, lectures, and holds workshops on memoir writing throughout the United States.
Larson writes personal essays, memoir, feature articles, book reviews, and literary criticism. For the last twelve years, he has been a contributing writer for the weekly San Diego Reader where he specializes in investigative journalism, narrative nonfiction, and profiles.

His writing has appeared in numerous reviews and journals, among them Tampa Review, The Gettysburg Review, Southwest Review, Antioch Review, Fourth Genre, Amazon.com/Shorts, the Anchor Essay Annual: The Best of 1997, Contrary Magazine online where he does quarterly book reviews, and New Letters where his memoir, "Mrs. Wright’s Bookshop," won the journal’s Reader’s Award for the Essay in 2008.

Enid Shomer

Enid Shomer is the author of four books of poetry and two of fiction, most recently Tourist Season: Stories (Random House), which received the 2008 State of Florida Gold Medal in Fiction and was also selected for Barnes & Noble’s “Discover Great Writers” program. Imaginary Men won the Iowa Prize and the LSU/Southern Review Prize. Her poems and stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic, Poetry, Best American Poetry, Best New Stories from the South, and in more than 60 anthologies and textbooks. The recipient of multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Florida Arts Council, Shomer has taught as a visiting writer at the University of Arkansas, Florida State University and The Ohio State University. Since 2002, she has been Editor of the University of Arkansas Press Poetry Series. Two books—Imaginary Men and Stars at Noon: Poems from the Life of Jacqueline Cochran—were the subject of feature interviews on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition.”

For more information about the MFA program and the summer residency reading series, visit http://www.ashland.edu/graduate/mfa