Syracuse University’s MFA in Creative Writing Reading Series features poet and photographer Kate Greenstreet (Sept. 16); poet Joel Brouwer G’93 (Sept. 30); Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat (Oct. 14); short-story writer Julie Orringer (Oct. 28); Bangalee-American poet Raza Ali Hasan G’07 (Nov. 11); novelist Dana Spiotta (Nov. 18); and poet, essayist and memoirist Mary Karr (Dec. 9).
The series each year brings six fiction writers and six poets to campus to read their works and to interact with students. Each event begins with a Q&A session at 3:45 p.m. and is followed by an author reading and book signing at 5:30 p.m. All activities take place in Gifford Auditorium in Huntington Beard Crouse Hall and are free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU pay lots. For more information, call 443-2174.
“The Raymond Carver Reading Series is one of the crown jewels of The College of Arts and Sciences,” says Christopher Kennedy G’88, director of the Creative Writing Program. “Each year, we host a dozen major writers and poets who engage students and the campus community. This kind of interaction is indicative of the personalized instruction in the Creative Writing Program.”
Greenstreet is the author of “The Last 4 Things” and “case sensitive,” both published by Ahsahta Press in 2009 and 2006, respectively. (The former comes with a DVD of her two movies.) She also is the author of three chapbooks, including “This Is Why I Hurt You” (Lame House Press, 2008). Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including jubilat, Fence, VOLT, the Denver Quarterly and Court Green. “Greenstreet is nothing [but] challenging, electric and crisp,” writes Publishers Weekly.
Brouwer is author of four collections of poetry, including “Centuries” (Four Way Books, 2003), named “Notable Book” by the National Book Critics Circle, and “Exactly What Happened” (Purdue University Press, 1999), winner of the Larry Levis Prize from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of five chapbooks; more than 30 poems that have been published worldwide; and dozens of essays and book reviews in The New York Times Book Review, Boston Review, Harvard Review, The Progressive, and Poetry, as well as in various literary journals. He is associate professor of English at the University of Alabama.
Danticat is a Haitian-born American author known for her arresting novels and short stories, including “The Dew Breaker” (Vintage, 2005); “Breath, Eyes, Memory” (Vintage, 1998); and “Krik? Krak!” (Vintage, 1996). She also has written a memoir that doubles as a work of social criticism titled “Brother, I’m Dying” (Vintage, 2008).
Danticat has served as editor of “The Butterfly’s Way: Voices From the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States” (Soho Press, 2003) and “The Beacon Best of 2000: Great Writing by Men and Women of All Colors and Cultures” (Beacon Press, 2000). She is the recipient of many honors and awards, including the prestigious Granta Award, a Pushcart Prize and fiction awards from Seventeen and Essence magazines. Her appearance at SU is part of the 2009 Syracuse Symposium, organized and presented by the SU Humanities Center.
Orringer is author of the novel “The Invisible Bridge” (Knopf, 2009) and the award-winning short story “How to Breathe Underwater” (Knopf, 2003). Her stories have been published by The Yale Review, where they have been twice-awarded the Editors’ Prize; the Paris Review, which awarded her the Discovery Prize; Ploughshares, which selected her work for the Cohen Award for Best Fiction; Zoetrope All-Story, which nominated her for a National Magazine Award; and Washington Post Magazine. Orringer is the recipient of two Pushcart prizes, and her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including “The Granta Book of the American Short Story” and “The Scribner Anthology of American Short Fiction.” She is the Helen Herzog Zell Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Michigan.
Hasan is author of the poetry collections “67 Mogul Miniatures” (Autumn House Press, 2009) and “Grieving Shias” (Sheep Meadow Press, 2006). His work has appeared in various literary journals, including AGNI, Shenandoah and Blackbird. Born in Bangladesh, Hasan was raised in Indonesia and Pakistan, before moving to the United States to earn degrees at the University of Texas at Austin and at SU. He serves on the English faculty of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Spiotta is author of “Eat the Document” (Scribner, 2006), which was a National Book Award finalist, winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Foundation Award, and a New York Times Notable Book, and “Lightning Field” (Scribner, 2001), named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the West. “Eat the Document” also earned book-of-the-year awards from Artforum, salon.com, The Oregonian and Time Out New York. The recipient of multiple fellowships, including a Guggenheim, Spiotta serves on SU’s creative writing faculty.
Karr is best known for her memoirs “Cherry” (Penguin, 2000) and “The Liar’s Club” (Penguin, 1995), the latter of which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award. Her third memoir, “Lit” (HarperCollins, 2009), is due out in November. She is an equally accomplished poet, as evidenced by the success of “Abacus” (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2007), “Sinner’s Welcome” (HarperCollins, 2006), “Viper Rum” (Penguin, 2001) and “The Devil’s Tour” (New Directions Publishing Corp., 1993). A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Karr served as a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005 and has won Pushcart prizes for her poetry and essays. She is the Peck Professor of English Literature at SU.
Named for the great short story writer and poet who taught at SU in the 1980s, the Raymond Carver Reading Series is a vital part of Syracuse’s literary life. The series is presented by the Creative Writing Program, generally recognized as one of the finest in the country. More information about the program, which is housed in The College of Arts and Sciences’ English department, is available at thecollege.syr.edu.
