Albion College English Department

2008-2009 Reading Series

All events are free and open to the public

Fiction Reading
Andy Mozina

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I-House Auditorium
5:10 PM

Andy Mozina, this year’s winner of the GLCA New Writers Fiction Award, is the author of the short story collection The Women Were Leaving the Men, a finalist for the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. Author Laura Kasischke describes the book as “both humorous and haunting. Mozina possesses both an ironic sensibility and a real compassion for characters in their human conditions.” He is also the author of the critical work Joseph Conrad and the Art of Sacrifice, and his short stories have appeared in numerous literary journals, such as Tin House, Alaska Quarterly, and Fence. The title story, “The Women Were Leaving the Men,” received special mention in The Pushcart Prize (2006) and was named a distinguished story in The Best American Short Stories 2005. Mozina is currently an associate professor of English at Kalamazoo College.

A reception and book-signing will immediately follow the reading.

Co-sponsored by the English Department and Stockwell-Mudd Library.


Thursday, November 6, 2008 I-House Auditorium 5:30 PM John Rybicki's latest collection of poems, We Bed Down Into Water, is available from Northwestern University Press. One of the poems from the collections was selected for The Best American Poetry 2008. He is also the author of Traveling at High Speeds (New Issues Poetry and Prose). His poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Field, and others. Rybicki travels the land teaching adults and children alike about the holiness of a sentence. He also works for "Wings of Hope" Hospice teaching poetry writing to children who have been through a trauma or loss. He is a widow and the father of an extraordinary boy. A reception and book-signing will immediately follow the reading.	Poetry Reading John Rybicki
Co-sponsored by the English Department and Prentiss M. Brown Honors Institute.

Fiction Reading Bonnie Jo Campbell	Thursday, November 6, 2008 I-House Auditorium 5:30 PM Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of Q Road, Women and Other Animals (winner of the AWP prize for short fiction), and co-editor of Our Working Lives. Her short stories have been published in numerous literary journals including Story, The Southern Review, Mid-American Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review. Campbell lives with her husband and other animals outside Kalamazoo. A reception and book-signing will immediately follow the reading.
Sponsored by the English Department.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 I-House Auditorium 5:10 PM Danit Brown is the author of ASK FOR A CONVERTIBLE (Pantheon), a collection of linked short stories. Her fiction has appeared in many literary journals, including Story, Glimmer Train, Story Quarterly, and One Story. A reception and book-signing will immediately follow the reading.	Fiction Reading Danit Brown
Sponsored by the English Department.

2009 Wilson Poet Natasha Trethewey	Tuesday, March 3, 2009 Norris 101 7:10 PM Natasha Trethewey’s most recent collection is Native Guard, for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. She has also published Domestic Work, which won the inaugural 1999 Cave Canem poetry prize (selected by Rita Dove), a 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize, and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. Her second book, Bellocq’s Ophelia, received the 2003 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize, was a finalist for both the Academy of American Poets' James Laughlin and Lenore Marshall prizes, and was named a 2003 Notable Book by the American Library Association. She is the recipient of various fellowships, including a Guggenheim and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Her work has appeared in journals such as Agni, American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Gettysburg Review, and Kenyon Review, as well as anthologies such as The Best American Poetry. Trethewey holds an M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts and is the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry at Emory University. A reception and book-signing will immediately follow the reading.
Sponsored by the Department of English, the Anna Howard Shaw Women's Center, the Ethnic Studies Program, and made possible by a generous donation from Albion alumni Mr. and Mrs. C. Thomas Wilson.

Monday, March 16, 2009 I-House Auditorium 5:10 PM Ander Monson, winner of the 2008 GLCA New Writer Award for creative-nonfiction, is the author of Neck Deep and other Predicaments, described by John D’Agata as “unapologetically smart, unexpectedly emotional, and playful in ways that most nonfiction never attempts.” The American Book Review writes, “Neck Deep should be read by anyone who cares about new developments in nonfiction.” Monson is also the author of the novel Other Electricities, a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award, and the poetry collection Vacationland. He edits the magazine DIAGRAM and the New Michigan Press. He recently moved from Michigan to Tucson, Arizona, where he teaches at the University of Arizona. A reception and book-signing will immediately follow the reading.	Creative Nonfiction Reading Ander Monson
Sponsored by the Department of English and Stockwell-Mudd Library.

Poetry Reading Helena Mesa	Thursday, April 16, 2009 I-House Auditorium 5:10 PM Born and raised in Pittsburgh to Cuban parents, Helena Mesa is the author of Horse Dance Underwater, a collection of poems. She is also the co-editor for Mentor & Muse: From Poets to Poets (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010); her poems have appeared in various literary journals, including Barrow Street, Bat City Review, Indiana Review, Pleiades, and Third Coast. She holds an M.F.A. from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. from the University of Houston. Helena is an assistant professor in the English Department at Albion College. A reception and book-signing will immediately follow the reading.
Sponsored by the English Department.

2007-2008 Reading Series