2009-2010
October 26, Rebecca Brown is a fiction, essay, and cross genre writer who has engaged in collaborations across all the arts. She has just published her twelfth book, American Romances, described as "an homage, a menage to America, exposing what's laid bare in comic tragic redux." Other titles include, The Dogs, The Terrible Girls, and The Gifts of the Body. She has been the recipient of many honors, including a Washington State Governor's Award and a Lambda Literary Award.
November 16, Maya Sonenberg received the Drue Heinz Literature Prize for her first collection of stories, Cartographies; her second collection is Voices From the Blue Hotel. She is currently experimenting with writing fiction by examining the formal expectations of poetry, and writing, for example, a fictional villanelle. For several years she was the director of the Creative Writing program in the English Department at the University of Washington, where she still teaches.
November 23, Pamela Z is a composer/performer who combines a wide range of vocal techniques with electronic processing, samples, and gesture-activated controllers. She's created installation works and has composed scores for dance, film, and new music chamber ensembles. She has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, showing her work at the Kitchen in New York, Whitney Museum of Art, and La Biennale di Venezi in Italy. Her numerous awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a NEA/JUSFC Fellowship. http://www.pamelaz.com
January 6, Charles Bernstein is the author of forty books of poetry and poetics; over four hundred essays and reviews have been written about his work. He is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of many awards including a Guggenheim and a NEA. The Donald T. Regan Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, he is widely known for his work in the Buffalo Poetics program. Forthcoming in 2010 is All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems. Other books, include Blind Witness: Three American Operas; Girly Man, and My Way: Speeches and Poems, and Content's Dream. http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein.
February 2, Carol Rambo is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Memphis and a cross-disciplinary writer. She writes about erotic dancing, incest, trauma, and mentally disabled parenting, challenging the boundaries of sociological and literary writing. She is the editor of the journal, Symbolic Interaction, one of the top rated journals in qualitative sociology. She has published work in Deviant Behavior, Mental Retardation, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography and Qualitative Inquiry.
February 10, Cris Cheek is a sound artist, poet, photographer, mixed-media practitioner and interdisciplinary performer. Born in London in 1955, he lived and worked there until the early 1990s, developing his practice of “Performance Writing.” Cris Cheek's most recent books are part: short life housing and the church, the school, the beer, a collection of transcribed live talks made in the streets in Norwich, England. He teaches at Miami University. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cris_cheek.
February 24, Bill Berkson is a poet, critic, teacher, and curator. His recent books of poetry include Gloria (in a deluxe limited edition with etchings by Alex Katz), Our Friends Will Pass Among You Silently, and Goods and Services. Other books include a collection of his criticism, The Sweet Singer of Modernism & Other Art Writings: 1985-2003; Sudden Address: Selected lectures 1981-2006; and Portrait and Dream: New & Selected Poems. From 1984 to 2008 he was a professor of Liberal Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute. He is a corresponding editor for Art in America and has contributed reviews and essays to such journals as Aperture, Artforum, Works on Paper and Modern Painters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Berkson.
2008-2009
Writing Through Writing
October 2, Aaron Shurin
Aaron Shurin is the author of multiple books of poetry and prose, including King of Shadows, Involuntary Lyrics, and Unbound: A Book of AIDS. He is the director of the creative writing program at the University of San Francisco. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Shurin
November 6, Kit Bakke
Kit Bakke was a 1960's activist with the Weather Underground, recently publishing Miss Alcott's E-Mail: Yours for Reforms of All Kinds. http://www.kitbakke.com/
Febuary 3, Laynie Browne
Laynie Browne is the author of multiple collections of poetry and one novel. Her book, The Scented Fox, was a recipient of the 2007 National Poetry Series Award.
March 3, Laura Moriarty
Laura Moriarty's recent books include A Semblance: Selected & New Poetry 1975 - 2007 and Ultravioleta. She is the deputy director of Small Press Distribution. http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/moriarty
April 6, Danny Snelson
Danny Snelson is a writer and archivist living in Brooklyn, New York--and an esteemed editor at UBU Web and PENN Sound. Recent books include Dear Countess and The Book of Raveling Women.
April 23, Paul Collins
Paul Collins is the author of six books of creative non-fiction, including Banvard's Folly, Sixpence House, and The Trouble with Tom--a travelogue of the posthumous travels of Thomas Paine. His work has appeared in McSweeney's, The Believer and The Village Voice. He is an assistant professor at Portland State University. http://en.wikipedia/org/wiki/Paul_Collins_(writer)
May 4, Beverly Dahlen
Beverly Dahlen's work includes four volumes of her long work-in-progress, A Reading, first publishing A Reading 1-7 in 1985, and recently, A Reading 18-20. She is a co-founder of the feminist experimental journal However, and is a long-time resident of San Francisco.
2007-2008
Liminalities: The State of Being Between- Body and Language, Hearing and Seeing, Text and Performance, Spiritualities and Materialities, East and West
October 1, Kathleen Fraser
Kathleen Fraser is poet, critic, and activist, with seventeen books of poems and a critical book of essays, Translating the Unspeakable: Poetry and the Innovative Necessity. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and the Frank O'Hara Award for innovative achievement. http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/fraser
November 19, Don Mee Choi & Zhang Er
Don Mee Choi was born in South Korea and now lives in Seattle. Her poetry has appeared in multiple literary magazines, including Cipher, Action Yes, and La Petite Zine. She has recently published two volumes of translations of contemporary poetry by Korean women, When the Plug Gets Unplugged: Poems by Kim Hyesoon and Anxiety of Words: Contemporary Poetry by Korean Women.
Zhang Er was born in Beijing China, and currently resides in Olympia, Washington, where she is on the faculty of the Evergreen State College. Zhang Er delivers her poems in Chinese, followed by readings of the translations. Her volumes of verse include Sight Progress, Carved Water, verses on birds and So Translating Rivers and Cities.
February 5, Hank Lazer & Lissa Wolsak
Hank Lazer is a poet and critic who has turned his attention most recently to spirituality. Having published twelve books of poetry, his current titles include The New Spirit, Elegies and Vacations, and Days. He is Professor of English at the University of Alabama where he serves as the Associate Provost for Academic Affairs. http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/lazer
Lissa Wolsak is a poet, goldsmith, and energy / thought-field therapist, residing in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has published several essays and long poem sequences, including her cross-genre work An Heuristic Prolusion. Her books of poems include Garcia Family Co-Mercy, Pen Chants, Of Beings Alone, and Squeezed Light: Collected Works 1994-2006. http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/wolsak
March 4, Steve McCaffery
Steve McCaffery is a poet, performance and intermedia artist, and critic. Author of more than forty books of poetry, criticism, and fiction, he was a founding member of the Toronto Research Group and the Four Horsemen ensemble. He is David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters, at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and a core member of the Buffalo Poetics program. http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/mccaffery
May 20, Kirby Larson
Kirby Larson went from history-phobe to history fanatic thanks to a snippet of a story about her great-grandmother homesteading in eastern Montana. That bit of family lore inspired her to write Hattie Big Sky, a young adult historical novel, which has won muliple awards, including 2007 Newbery Honor Award. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirby_Larson
2006 - 2007
Focus on the Northwest & Aviary Corridor
October 12, Lidia Yuknavitch
Lidia Yuknavitch has published three collections of short fiction, Real to Reel, Her Other Mouths, and Liberty's Excess; and is the founder of Chiasmus Press in Portland. http://lidiayuknavitch.net
October 28, Stacey Levine
Winner of the PEN / West Fiction award for My Horse and Other Stories, Levine is the author of Frances Johnson and of Dra--. http://en.wikipedia.org/Stacey_Levine
November 11, Writing and Activism Panel
Rebecca Brown, Robert Mittenthal, Leonard Schwartz, Lidia Yuknavith.
How do writers combine the solitary activity of writing with community activism? How do writers bring the subtle aspirations of their art to bear on a public arena of conflicting voices? What good can the written arts have for public life? These questions and others will be discussed by Northwest Writers, Rebecca Brown, Robert Mittenthal, Leonard Schwartz, and Lidia Yuknavitch.
Aviary Cooridor - A series of Coordinated Events in April and May
April 25, Charles Alexander & Aviary Corridor
Charles Alexander is a poet and book artist, most recnely publishing Certain Slants and arc of light / dark matter. Alexander reads his poetry in advance of the musical performance of "Aviary Corridor," a contemporary piece of music written by Tim Risher in response to Alexander's poem of this name. Mike Katell directs the ensemble of soprano, flute, string quartet, and piano. http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/alexander
April 28, Charles Alexander on Book Arts
Alexander conducts a workshop exploring the relationship between book arts and innovative writing practices.
May 1, Visible Languages Panel
Alexandar, Elizabeth Brown, and Brian Reed discuss the relationship between the presence and presentation of language in the visual and written arts. Elizabeth Brown is the Chief Curator of the Henry Art Gallery and Brian Reed is an associate professor in the English Department.
May 3, Charles Alexander and Sandra Kroupa - Exhibit Talks
A display of artist's books, letterpress editions, and other works that simultaneously engage our visual and aural senses, created by Allen Library Book Arts and Rare book curator, Sandra Kroupa. Exhibit runs April 25- May 29, UWB library.
2005-2006
October 20, Suzanne Jill Levine
Translator of over twenty Latin American novels and biographer of Manual Puig and the Kiss of the Spider Woman, Levine reads from her works and previews her own memoir. Recipient of PEN Career Achievement Award, Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Humanities, and National Endowment for the Arts.
November 1, Dodie Bellamy
Sashaying between real life and fiction, Bellamy explores contemporary existence in her documentary phantasmagoria, Pink Steam and The Letters of Mina Harker. Winner of the Firecracker Alternative Book Award. http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bellamy
April 27, Alex Kuo
Winner of the American Book Award for Lipstick and Other Stories, Kuo confronts endemic stereotypes of China and Chinese Americans in his elusive fiction and poetry. Recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and Lingnan Foundation.
May 11, Joan Burbick
Scholar turned popular writer, Burbick reads from Rodeo Queens and Gun Show Nation. Scholarly books include Thoreau's Alternative History and Healing the Republic.