2019-20 Reading Series
Akhil Sharma
Wednesday | Feb. 19, 2020 | 7:30 p.m. | Goodhart Music Room
Akhil Sharma is the author of two novels and a collection of short stories, A Life of Adventure and Delight. His first novel, An Obedient Father, was the winner of the prestigious PEN/Hemingway Prize. His second novel, Family Life, was the winner of the Folio Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award and was named one of The New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of 2014. Sharma’s short stories regularly appear in The New Yorker. He teaches at Rutgers University-Newark.
Danez Smith
Wednesday | March 25, 2020 | 7:30 p.m. | Ely Room, Wyndham
Danez Smith is one of the most dynamic poets writing in America today. They are the author of three full-length poetry collections, including Don’t Call Us Dead, a finalist for the National Book Award. Smith has been the winner of numerous awards, including the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. Their poems have appeared in Poetry magazine and Ploughshares, among many other publications. Smith’s third collection, Homie, will be published by Graywolf in Spring 2020.
This reading was made possible with the support of the Jane Flanders Fund and the Marianne Moore Fund for the Study of Poetry.
Sigrid Nunez
Wednesday | April 1, 2020 | 7:30 p.m. | Ely Room, Wyndham
Sigrid Nunez’s novel The Friend was the winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction. She is the author of seven novels and a book of nonfiction, Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. One of the most lauded novelists in the U.S., Nunez has been the winner of a Whiting Award, the Rome Prize, and the American Academy’s Rosenthal Foundation Award, and her work has been included in The Best American Short Stories series. She teaches in the M.F.A. program at Boston University.
Natalie Diaz
Wednesday | April 22, 2020 | 7:30 p.m. | Ely Room, Wyndham
Natalie Diaz is the author of two collections of poetry: When My Brother Was an Aztec and Postcolonial Love Poem. A winner of the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant and Narrative Prize, Diaz’s poems have appeared in The New York Times, Poetry, The Iowa Review, and many other publications. In The New York Times Book Review, Eric McHenry writes, “Diaz grew up on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation, where she now works with the last four fluent speakers of Mojave to save their fading language. On evidence in this beautiful book… her skill with metaphor owes much to her being a good listener.”
This reading was made possible with the support of the Jane Flanders Fund and the Marianne Moore Fund for the Study of Poetry.
Past Events
Ladan Osman
Wednesday | Oct. 2, 2019 | 7:30 p.m. | Goodhart Music Room
Poet Ladan Osman’s first collection, The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony, was the winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry. Born in Somalia, she has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Cave Canem, and the Michener Center. Osman’s poems have appeared in Narrative Magazine, The Normal School, Prairie Schooner, and Waxwing. Writing of her new book of poems, Exiles of Eden, Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah says, “Osman has an abundance of talent, and she is one of a kind.”
This reading has been made possible with the support of the Jane Flanders Fund and the Marianne Moore Fund for the Study of Poetry.
Tom Perrotta
Wednesday | Nov. 6, 2019 | 7:30 p.m. | Ely Room, Wyndham
Tom Perrotta is the bestselling author of nine works of fiction, including Election and Little Children, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films, and The Leftovers, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Peabody Award-winning HBO series. His other books include Bad Haircut, The Wishbones, Joe College, The Abstinence Teacher, Nine Inches, and his newest, Mrs. Fletcher. His work has been translated into a multitude of languages. Perrotta grew up in New Jersey and lives outside of Boston.
Sam Lipsyte
Wednesday | Nov. 13, 2019 | 7:30 p.m. | Ely Room, Wyndham
Fiction writer Sam Liptsyte is the author of two iconic story collections—the cult classic Venus Drive and The Fun Parts—and four novels, most recently Hark. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review, Harper’s, and many other major magazines. He is the recipient of the Believer Book Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and he is one of the most beloved and emulated writers working today. Lipsyte teaches in the M.F.A. program at Columbia University.
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