Literary Events at Willamette University

The Hallie Ford Literary Series at Willamette University is open to the public, in the Hatfield library on campus, so check out some of the following speakers:

Hallie Ford Literary Series, Spring 2012

Thursday, February 2: Susan Briante, Poet

Susan Briante was born in Newark, N.J., after the riots. She is the author of two poetry collections, most recently UTOPIA MINUS. She also publishes essays on industrial ruins, abandoned buildings and cultural memory. The poems in her first book,  Pioneers in the Study of Motion (Ashanta Press, Boise State University, March 2007) reference field notes as well as love letters as they trace her experiences living in Mexico City from 1992-1998 and reading the Latin American avant-garde. About Utopia Minus, the poet Jean Valentine writes, “What a wildly intelligent, learned poet Briante is, in this biography-autobiography of the American body and soul around 2010, witnessed (and lived) with such bite, understanding, and sorrow.”

Monday, March 5: Anthony Doerr, Fiction Writer

Winner of The Story Prize, the country’s most prestigious award for a collection of short fiction, Anthony Doerr is the author of four books, including the memoir Four Seasons in Rome, the novel About Grace, and the story collection The Shell Collector. His most recent book, Memory Wall, a second volume of stories, was named a best book of the year by the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Amazon.com. Doerr’s short fiction has won three O. Henry Prizes and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, and The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction. He has won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, the National Magazine Award for Fiction, two Pushcart Prizes, the Pacific Northwest Book Award, two Ohioana Book Awards, and the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. He teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Wednesday, April 4: Oregon Book Awards Author Tour

In partnership with Literary Arts, Inc., of Portland, the Hallie Ford Chair and English Department will host a reading by three finalists for this year’s Oregon Book Award. The Oregon Book Awards are presented annually for the finest accomplishments by Oregon writers working in various genres, including fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and young adult literature. Finalists will be announced in January.

Plus, a special event:

Monday, April 30 / Tuesday, May 1: New Literary Works Festival

This two-evening program will celebrate the written word with a combination of dramatic readings of student plays and readings of poetry and prose by students in the Senior Seminar in Creative Writing.