Department of Writing

Grand Valley Writers Series

The Grand Valley Writers Series has a long history of bringing distinguished and emerging writers to campus to read from their work, visit classes, and interact with students across Grand Valley's campus. Along with the yearly Fall Arts Celebration and the Office of the President that co-sponsors Poetry Night, among other events, the following writers have come to read on campus: Charles Baxter, Amy Benson, Billy Collins, Peter Ho Davies, Junot Diaz, Rita Dove, Dan Gerber, Jim Harrison, Jonathan Johnson, Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Debra Marquart, Michael Martone, David Means, Sharon Olds, Sonia Sanchez, and Joe Wenderoth, C. K. Williams, Charles Wright, and many more.


Any questions about the series should be referred to GV Writers Series Coordinator and Assistant Professor Caitlin Horrocks (horrockc@gvsu.edu, 616-331-8022)

 

This year's guests:

 

Fiction writer Allison Amend

Thursday October 6, 2011

Craft talk 11:30-12:45 KC 2263

Reading 4-5:30 KC 2250DEF

Allison Amend was born in Chicago on a day when the Cubs beat the Mets

2-0. After graduating from Stanford University with a degree in

Comparative Literature, she received her MFA from the University of Iowa

Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of the  IPPY Award-winning short

story collection, Things That Pass for Love, (OV Books, 2008) and the

historical novel, Stations West (LSU’s Yellow Shoe Fiction Series,

2010), which was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize and the Oklahoma

Book Award. Currently, she is completing a novel examining the

intersection of art forgery and cloning, and working on screenplays.

Visit her on the web at www.allisonamend.com.

 

Stephanie Strickland: Electronic Literature

Wednesday November 2, 2011

Presentation 3-4:15  2263 Kirkhof

Reading 6-7pm   2263 Kirkhof

Stephanie Strickland’s Zone : Zero (book + CD), includes two interactive

digital poems. Her prize-winning volumes include V: WaveSon.nets /

Losing L’una, True North, and The Red Virgin: A Poem of Simone Weil. Her

collaborative hypermedia poem, slippingglimpse, was introduced in Paris

and shown at the e-Poetry festival in Barcelona. Sea and Spar Between, a

poetry generator written with Nick Montfort, appeared last year in Dear

Navigator, a new journal of electronic literature from the School of the

Art Institute of Chicago. She is a director of the Electronic Literature

Organization and an editor of the first Electronic Literature

Collection.

 

GVSU Faculty Reading: Caitlin Horrocks, Amorak Huey, and Oindrila

Mukherjee

Thursday January 26, 2011

7pm, Cook-Dewitt Auditorium

 

 

Playwright Randy Wyatt

Monday February 13, 2012

Craft talk 3-4:15pm KC 2215/6

Performance 4:30-5:30pm KC 2215/6

Randy Wyatt earned his MFA in Directing from Minnesota State University

at Mankato. He has directed for Circle Theatre and Magic Circle for 9

seasons, including Alice in Wonderland (and back again), Guys and Dolls,

Moby Dick! The Musical, Androcles And The Lion, Princess and The Pea,

Treasure Island, Robin Hood, The Hobbit and Wiley and The Hairy Man.

Other directing credits include Any Other Name, Sun Stand Thou Still,

Esperanza Rising, Hecuba, Dimly Perceived Threats To The System and the

Grand Award nominated productions Arabian Nights and Writer 1272 for

Aquinas College; the Grand Award winning The Secret Garden at

Cornerstone University; Twelfth Night and Tartuffe for Heritage Theatre

Group; Private Eyes and Waving Goodbye for Minnesota State University at

Mankato; The Illusion, The Birds and Picasso At The Lapin Agile for Lost

in the Cove Productions; Anticipating Miles for the Coda Theatre Project

in Austin TX; and Said and Meant and Man Saved By Condiments! for the

Whole Art Theatre in Kalamazoo. Randy’s plays have been published and

produced internationally. He has been published through Heinneman, Smith

+ Krause, Playscripts, Inc and Applause Publishing. His plays (including

Mint, 9x9x9, Synonymy, Said and Meant, Sonata Blue and Harmony) have

been performed and won recognition in many places around the nation,

including the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. His

children's plays include Brave Little Tailor and Rising Sun, Rising Moon

which have toured to schools throughout Minnesota and the Grand Rapids

area. Currently he is readying a collection of his short works for

publication, Tiny Catastrophes and other short plays. Randy has taught

directing, improvisation and script writing at several colleges and

institutions. He is a member of the Playwright’s Center in Minneapolis.

 

Poet L.S. Klatt

Monday February 20, 2012

University Club, DeVos, Pew Campus

Craft talk 6:00-6:30pm

Reading 6:30-7:30pm

L. S. Klatt is a 2003 graduate of the Creative Writing Program at the

University of Georgia. He currently teaches American literature and

creative writing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Recent

poems of his have appeared or will appear in Best American Poetry 2011,

Boston Review, Colorado Review, Drunken Boat, Hotel Amerika, jubilat,

Sycamore Review, West Branch, The Cincinnati Review, Parthenon West

Review, and Verse Daily. His first book, Interloper, won the 2008

Juniper Prize for Poetry and was published by the University of

Massachusetts Press in 2009. His second collection, Cloud of Ink, won

the 2010 Iowa Poetry Prize and was published this last spring (2011) by

the University of Iowa Press.

 

Joe Wilkins: creative nonfiction and poetry

Tuesday March 13, 2012

Craft talk 4-5:15 KC 2215/6

Reading 7:30-8:30 KC 2215/6

Joe Wilkins is the author of a memoir-in-fragments, The Mountain and the

Fathers (Counterpoint 2012) and a collection of poems, Killing the

Murnion Dogs (Black Lawrence Press 2011). His work has appeared in the

Georgia Review, the Southern Review, Harvard Review, the Sun, Orion, and

Slate, among other magazines and literary journals. A 2010 National

Magazine Award finalist and 2010 PEN Center USA Award in Journalism

finalist, he is the recipient of the Richard J. Margolis Award of Blue

Mountain Center, which goes to “a promising new journalist or essayist

whose work combines warmth, humor, wisdom and concern with social

justice.” He lives with his wife, son, and daughter on the north Iowa

prairie, where he teaches writing at Waldorf College.