Distinguished Visiting Writers Series
Four writers of national or international reputation are invited to read from their works each academic year, usually in October, November, March, and April. The following writers were invited for this academic year:
- Denise Low
The Distinguished Visiting Writers Series will host a poetry reading by Kansas Poet Laureate Denise Low on Thursday, September 20, at 8 p.m. in the Balkans Room of Pittsburg State University's Overman Student Center, followed by a reception in the Heritage Room.
This will be the first event in the annual series, which brings nationally acclaimed authors, poets and writers to PSU. The event is free and open to the public, and is presented in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, which believes that a great nation deserves great art. The Student Fee Council co-sponsors this event.
Since beginning her term as Kansas Poet Laureate, Low has inaugurated the Ad Astra Poetry Project online, which features historic and contemporary Kansas poets. Her blog, deniselow.blogspot.com, also highlights literary events in Kansas and Kansas City. In addition to her duties as Poet Laureate, Low is Interim Dean of Humanities & Arts at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence.
Her book about the writing life in the Midwest grasslands, Words of a Prairie Alchemist, (Ice Cube Press 2006) was named a Kansas Notable Book by the Kansas State Library. Among her ten books of poetry are Thailand Journal: Poems, a Kansas City Star notable book (Woodley 2003) and New & Selected Poems 1980-1999 (Penthe 2000, 2007). Her writings appear in North American Review, Midwest Quarterly, Kansas City Star, Bloomsbury Review, Connecticut Review, Studies in American Indian Literature, American Indian Culture and Research Journal and American Indian Quarterly.
In an interview published in the Summer 2007 issue of PSU's journal, The Midwest Quarterly, Low defines the mysteries of Kansas:
"You know what it's like to get out in the Flint Hills . . . You can see so many miles. And then there is that little, thin band just where you almost but not quite see horizon, and that's the place where that mystery and infinity become a tangible experience." From her poem, "Flint Hills Twilight,"
"After another earth-quarter turns away-
this world's quirk of axis-
and the sky rearouses:violet and cobalt, then indigo.
You could be visible
against the last brilliant sky."Evensong: Contemporary American Poets on Spirituality (Huron OH: Bottom Dog Press)
Fiction writer Robin Hemley reads from his work Thursday, November 8, at 8:00 p.m. in the Governor’s Room, Pittsburg State University’s Overman Center. Hemley is the author of a novel, The Last Studebaker (Graywolf) and two short story collections, The Big Ear (John F. Blair Press) and All You Can Eat (Atlantic Monthly Press). The Distinguished Visiting Writer Series and Student Fee Council will host the reading and a reception that follows in the Heritage Room. Hemley is also scheduled to speak to fiction writing classes meeting in 302 Grubbs Hall from 12:30 to 1:45 on Thursday. The reading and class visit are free and open to the public.
Hemley is a graduate of the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop Master of Fine Arts program. “I knew Robin when we were both students at the Workshop,” Karen Stolz, PSU Creative Writing instructor, says. “He was writing funny, quirky, moving stories even then. I hope students and writers will come out to hear Robin read from his work.” Hemley has published his stories and essays in such places as The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Southern Review, Prairie Schooner and Ploughshares. His numerous awards include first place in The Nelson Algren Award for Fiction from the Chicago Tribune, the George Garrett Award for Fiction, The Governor’s Award for Nonfiction from the State of Washington and two Pushcart Prizes. His book Turning Life into Fiction (Graywolf), a widely-used craft text, has sold over 50,000 copies and his book Nola: A Memoir of Faith, Art and Madness (Graywolf) is cited as an important work dealing with schizophrenia. Hemley is Director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa.Hemley, on the frustrations of writing, has said. “…I think that frustration is actually a necessary component of the creative process.Often, when I’m about to give up in frustration, the solution presents itself.It’s as though my conscious mind has surrendered to my subconscious where real creativity lies.” (Creative Nonfiction Issue 27)
From Hemley’s short story “The Big Ear,” from the collection of the same name: “Tonight, one woman reads a poem about shopping for boyfriends at the Winn-Dixie. She describes some of her boyfriends as canned vegetables, condensed Green Giants who gave her botulism. Her old boyfriends are stretched out in the frozen-food case, lewd smiles on their faces. The guy she’s dating now is in the fresh-meat section, a butt steak. Everyone laughs at this part except for Peter. How did they get in the frozen-food section in the first place? Were they murdered?” - The Big Ear, John F. Blair Press.
Amanda Eyre Ward will read her fiction on March 27, 2008, at 8:00 p.m. in the Governor’s Room. Ward received her MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Montana. She has had short stories published in Zoetrope, Mississippi Review and Tin House and is the author of Sleep Toward Heaven (2003), winner of the Violet Crown Book Award and optioned for film by Sandra Bullock and Fox Searchlight. Amanda’s second novel, How To Be Lost ( 2004) was selected as a Target Bookmarked pick and has been published in fifteen countries. To research her third novel, Forgive Me (2007), Ward traveled to Cape Town, South Africa. The book received a starred review in Booklist: “Upon finishing Ward’s tantalizingly spare yet precisely powerful novel, readers will want to start all over again, looking for the clues they missed the first time around when Ward, like a cunning magician, so deftly led them astray.” To learn more about Ward, visit her website <http://www.amandaward.com/index.php>. Ward’s reading is also sponsored by the Student Fee Council and the Women’s Studies program. Following the reading, there will be a reception in the Heritage Room.
Peggy Shumaker will read her poetry Thursday, April 24, 2008, in the Governor’s Room at 8:00 p.m. Shumaker's newest book of poetry is Blaze, a collection of sensual Alaskan paintings and poems. This collaboration with the painter Kesler Woodward was published in 2005 by Red Hen Press. Forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press is Just Breathe Normally, a book of nonfiction. Her previous books include Underground Rivers (Red Hen Press), Wings Moist from the Other World, The Circle of Totems, Braided River, and Esperanza's Hair. Her poems have been published in Russia, Japan, Australia, Canada, England, and throughout the United States. Her nonfiction has appeared in Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction (Norton), A Road of Her Own (Fulcrum), Under Northern Lights (U. WA Press), A Year in Place (U. UT Press), Prairie Schooner and Ascent. To learn more about Shumaker, visit her website < http://www.peggyshumaker.com/books.html >.
Victor J. Emmett, Jr., Memorial Lecture
Each year in September, the winner of the Victor J. Emmett Memorial Prize for the best essay on a literary topic submitted to The Midwest Quarterly is invited to Pittsburg State to receive the Emmett Prize and to deliver a scholarly lecture. The award is given in memory of the late Dr. Victor J. Emmett, Jr., who, before his death in 1990, was for twenty-three years a Professor of English at Pittsburg State. He also served as editor-in-chief of MQ from 1976-1981. The award is sponsored by the Emmett family, The Midwest Quarterly, and the English Department of Pittsburg State. The lecture is free and open to the public. A brief award ceremony and reception follows the lecture.
This year's winner is Joseph Powell, Professor of English at Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington. Professor Powell’s winning essay was “Honesty, Elegance, & the Ragged Edge," which appeared in the Fall 2007 issue. The title of his lecture is "The Latest Bees in Darwin's Garden," which deals with the poems of William Wordsworth and John Clare as contrasting models for subsequent poetry.
Powell received his B. A. in English from the University of Washington, an M. A. from Central Washington University, and an M. F. A. from the University of Arizona. His first book of poems was Counting the Change (Quarterly Review of Literature, 1986); his second was Winter Insomnia (Arrowood Books, 1993); and his third, Getting Here (Quarterly Review of Literature, 1997). He also co-wrote with Mark Halperin, Accent On Meter: A Handbook for the Readers of Poetry (National Council of Teachers of English, 2004). He is currently working on a collection of short stories and two books of poetry. His poems, essays, criticism, and stories have appeared in more than sixty journals, including the Alaska Quarterly Review, The Connecticut Review, Crab Creek Review, Hawaii Review, The Humanist, Kansas Quarterly, The Long Story, Poetry, Nebraska Review, Seattle Review, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Review, and many others. In his spare time, he enjoys flyfishing, gardening, gathering mushrooms and berries, and playing ping-pong and tennis.
