Spring 2008 - 47^thSeason

All Writers Forum readings begin at 8:00 pm in the New York Room, Cooper Hall—unless otherwise noted.
All events (unless otherwise noted) are free and open to the public.

Follow directions to campus.

Names & Dates:


PHOTO CREDIT: Beth Kelly	February 13 Amy Bloom: Author of two novels, two collections of short stories, and a nominee for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and numerous anthologies here and abroad. She has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, Slate, and Salon, among many other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award. Her first book of nonfiction, Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude, is an exploration of the varieties of gender. She lives in Connecticut and teaches at Yale University.

February 27 (Cancelled due to bad weather conditions) A. Van Jordan: A. Van Jordan is the author of Rise, published by Tia Chucha Press, 2001, which won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award and selected for the Book of the Month Club from the Academy of American Poets. His second book, M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A, published by W.W. Norton & Co, 2004, was awarded an Anisfield-Wolf Award and listed as one the Best Books of 2005 by The London Times (TLS). Jordan was also awarded a Whiting Writers Award in 2005 and a Pushcart Prize in 2006, 30th Edition. Quantum Lyrics was published July 2007 by W.W. Norton & Co. He is a recent recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, 2007. He is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, and he serves on faculty at the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

PHOTO CREDIT: Caroline Nikitas	March 26 Derek Nikitas: Like the protagonist of his debut novel Pyres, Derek Nikitas was born on Saint Lucy’s Day, December thirteenth. Raised in Manchester, NH, then Rochester, NY, he earned his undergraduate degree in English from SUNY Brockport and his MFA in Creative Writing from UNC-Wilmington. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing from Georgia State University and has published stories in The Ontario Review, Chelsea, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine and the recent St. Martin’s short story anthology, Killer Year: Stories to Die For. His story “Wonder” received an honorable mention from the Pushcart Prize, and in 2007 he was a Walter E. Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Pyres is a 2008 Edgar Award nominee for Best First Novel by an American Author.

PHOTO CREDIT: Barbara Hamby	April 9 David Kirby: David Kirby is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University. His latest collection, The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems, was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award.

	April 23 7:30 pm Susan Orlean: Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester. Art of Fact Award. Please contact Kim Ehret for info: kehret@brockport.edu