Creative Writing Reading Series

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Creative Writing Reading Series

Spring 2010

G.E. PATTERSON

Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Soda Activity Center

One of this year's Distinguished Writers-in-Residence at Saint Mary’s College of California, G. E. Patterson is the author of To and From and Tug, which won a Minnesota Book Award. His work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Bum Rush the Page, Poetry 180, American Letters and Commentary, Fence, Five Fingers Review, nocturnes: (re)view of the arts, Seneca Review, Open City, and XcP: Cross Cultural Poetics. Patterson's awards include fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Cave Canem, the Djerassi Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. He lives and teaches in Minnesota.

JANE VANDENBURGH

Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Soda Activity Center

Jane Vandenburgh is the author of the novels Failure to Zigzag and The Physics of Sunset, and her memoir, A Pocket History of Sex in the Twentieth Century, was published in 2009. She has taught literature and writing at UC Davis, Georgetown, and the George Washington University in Washington, DC, and she is one of this year’s Distinguished Writers-in-Residence at Saint Mary’s College of California. The Architecture of the Novel, her book on the craft of writing the longer narrative, will be published in 2010. She lives in Point Richmond, California.

ALEX LEMON

Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Soda Activity Center

Alex Lemon is the author of several poetry collections and the memoir Happy. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Esquire, Best American Poetry 2008, AGNI, BOMB, Gulf Coast, jubilat, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Open City, Pleiades and Tin House. He was awarded a 2005 Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2006 Minnesota Arts Board Grant. He co-edits LUNA: A Journal of Poetry and Translation with Ray Gonzalez and is a frequent contributor to The Bloomsbury Review.

GLEN DAVID GOLD

Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Soda Activity Center

Glen David Gold is the author of Carter Beats the Devil, which was a New York Times Notable Book in 2001. A graduate of the writing program at the University of California, Irvine, he has written for newspapers, magazines, and television, including an episode of the cartoon Hey Arnold, and a comic book story about Will Eisner's The Spirit, which appeared in DC Comics' The Spirit #13. His latest novel is Sunnyside, and he is currently a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Saint Mary’s College of California.

LYNN FREED

Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Hagerty Lounge

Lynn Freed was born and grew up in Durban, South Africa. She came to New York as a graduate student, receiving her M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from Columbia University. Her novels include The Servant's Quarters, Home Ground, The Mirror, and House of Women. She has also written a collection of short stories, The Curse of the Appropriate Man, and a collection of essays, Reading, Writing, & Leaving Home: Life on the Page. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsday, Mirabella, Elle, House Beautiful, House & Garden, Vogue, and many other publications. In 2002, Freed was awarded the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and she has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony, among others. Ms. Freed is Professor of English at the University of California in Davis.

GRAHAM FOUST and CLAIRE BECKER

Wednesday, May 5, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Soda Activity Center

Graham Foust is the author of four books of poetry, including A Mouth in California, which was published in 2009. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in Conjunctions, The Nation, Verse, American Poet, The Laurel Review, and many other publications. He works at Saint Mary's College of California and lives in Oakland.

Claire Becker's poems have been published in Typo, Tarpaulin Sky, The Tiny, The Cultural Society, and elsewhere. Her first book, Where We Think it Should Go, is forthcoming from Octopus Books, and her chapbooks Untoward and Get You were published by Lame House Press and Duration Press, respectively. She holds an MFA from Saint Mary's College of California and an Education Specialist Instruction Credential from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. She is a co-editor of the magazine RealPoetik, lives in Oakland and teaches in the high school program at the California School for the Blind.