Medaille College’s Write Thing Reading Series just might be one of the most eclectic visiting artist series at any educational institution in Buffalo. Each semester, Medaille invites from 3 to 6 published poets and fiction writers to campus for readings and/or class visits. Students at Medaille have the unique chance to meet up close and personal with Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award finalists, Guggenheim Fellowship recipients, and some of the most renowned international writers of today - as well as up-and-coming younger writers.

All readings are 7 p.m. Thursdays in The Library at Huber Hall, unless noted. All events are free and open to the public. Refreshments are occasionally served.
 

SPRING 2008 LINEUP

CANCELED - February 7: Lidia Yuknavitch

Lidia Yuknavitch directs Chiasmus Press, which she co-founded with Andy Mingo. This independent production company asks the question, “if literature could rise from its own pop-culture, market-driven ashes and remake itself as a comment against the state . . .what would it look like?”

Chiasmus answers that question with support for artists and activists, who, like Yuknavitch, are “blurring the line between content and form.” Yuknavitch has written three short fiction collections: Real to Reel (FC2, 2002), Her Other Mouths (House of Bones Press, 1997) and Liberty's Excess (FC2, 2000). A book of criticism, Allegories of Violence (Routledge) was published in 2000. Her writing has appeared in Postmodern Culture, Fiction International, Another Chicago Magazine, Zyzzyva, and Other Voices, and in the anthologies Representing Bisexualities (NYU Press) and Third Wave Agenda (University of Minnesota Press). She has been the co-editor of Northwest Edge: Deviant Fictions and the editor of two girls review.

February 21: Irving Feldman
(this is a change from the originally scheduled date of February 28)

In a career spanning nearly half a century, Irving Feldman's collections of poetry have included Beautiful False Things: Poems (Grove Press, 2000); All of Us Here (1986), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Leaping Clear (1976) and The Pripet Marshes (1965), both finalists for the National Book Award; and Works and Days (1961). The Life and Letters (1994) was a finalist for the Poets' Prize. Feldman is the recipient of a National Institute of Arts and Letters award as well as fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant”. Since 1964 he has been on the faculty of the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English.

March 27: Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty is the author of nine books, including Broken Hallelujahs (BOA, 2007), Nightshift Belonging to Lorca (Mammoth, 2004), a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, and Except by Falling, winner of the 2000 Pinyon Press Poetry Prize from Mesa State College. His awards include two Pennsylvania Council for the Arts Fellowships in Poetry. Raised in an interracial family with an African-American stepfather and a mother whose grandparents were Jewish immigrants, issues of identity and the complexities of history are central in his work. Dougherty has an MFA in poetry from Syracuse University, and has been the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Penn State-Erie.

April 17: Rebecca Maslen

Rebecca Maslen graduated from Medaille College with a B.A. in Humanities and a Certificate in Interactive Multimedia, and Rosemont College with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. She has been published in Parlor Journal and Flashquake (which resulted in a Pushcart Prize nomination), and runs her own interactive hyperfiction site at rebeccamaslen.com. A native of Buffalo, NY, she currently resides in Philadelphia, but also travels with her husband, a professional wrestling promoter with shows from Boston to Chicago and abroad. She teaches technology in a community center in South Philly and is working on a novel set in the independent wrestling scene.

RECENT VISITORS

POETS: Joshua Beckman, Michael Basinski, Robert Creeley, Yago Said Cura, Denise DuhamelForrest Gander, Geoffrey Gatza, Matt Hart ,Janet Holmes, Kent Johnson,Sally Keith, Michael Kelleher, Douglas Manson, Jeredith Merrin, Joseph Lease, Timothy Liu, Daniel Nester, Tomaz Salamun, James Tate, Franz Wright, Reginald Shepherd, Diane Ward, Thom Ward, Dara Wier, Matthew Zapruder, Andrew Zawacki,

POPULAR CULTURE: Anouar Majid, David Rees, Rolling Stone cartoonist; NPR correspondent/novelist/Found magazine editor Davy Rothbart
 

Dr. Ted Pelton
Director, Creative Writing Program
Medaille College
18 Agassiz Circle
Buffalo, NY 14214
716-880-2290

Medaille College is part of LiteraryBuffalo, a consortium of local educational institutions, arts organizations and booksellers working together to promote literary events in Western New York. Visit www.LiteraryBuffalo.org for updated events calendars, information on local authors' books, and other literary events in the region.