| | Published February 4th, 2009
| SMC Spring Creative Writing Reading Series Kicks Off
| | By Andrea A. Firth | | |
Each Spring and Fall, Saint Mary's College (SMC) in Moraga brings some of today's most talented fiction and nonfiction writers and poets from across the country to share their work as part of the Creative Writing Reading Series. The Spring Series will include seven authors who will read published writing or work-in-progress and answer audience questions on six Wednesday evenings between February and May
"We always aim to bring a diverse group of writers from across the three genres-fiction, nonfiction, and poetry," states Graham Foust, Director of the Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at SMC.
One of the highlights of the Series will be a reading by San Francisco-based author and journalist Leslie Carol Roberts, who is a Distinguished Visiting Writer at SMC this Spring. Roberts will read from her recently published book The Entire Earth and Sky: Views on Antarctica.
Intimately familiar with Antarctica having spent several months there as a journalist tracking the efforts of Greenpeace, Roberts also lived and worked in New Zealand where she embraced the adventurous spirit of the Antarctic explorers who came from and passed through its shores. Roberts brings her passion for the South Pole to her to her writing and expands upon the stories of a number of the men who were members of Ernest Shackleton's legendary Antarctic expedition. "Antarctica was transformational for me," says Roberts. "It's a horrible, beautiful place. It was place that I didn't want to leave."
The Creative Writing Reading Series will kick off with Los Angeles native and short fiction writer Dana Johnson on February 18th. The Series will also include award-winning poet and well-known editor of The Nation, Peter Gizzi; fiction and nonfiction writer Lee Montgomery, who authored The Things Between Us: A Memoir; and poet Kazim Ali, who teaches creative writing at both Oberlin College and the University of Southern Maine. The season will conclude with readings from Mary Volmer, who received an M.F.A. in Creative from the SMC in 2005 and published her first novel, Crown of Dust, in 2006, and faculty member Lysley Tenorio, who was awarded the prestigious Whiting Writers' Award in 2008 for his fiction writing.
Details of the SMC Creative Writing Reading Series can be found at http://www.stmarys-ca.edu/academics/schools/school-of-liberal-arts/departments-programs/mfa-creative-writing/reading-series.html.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA