Fall
Readings 2007
Marvin Bell
Oct. 24, 7:30 p.m., Chestnut Ridge Room,
Reuter Center
Philip Terman
Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m., Laurel Forum, Karpen Hall
Enid Shomer
Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m., Laurel Forum, Karpen Hall
Marvin Bell
was born in New York City in 1937 and grew up on rural Long Island. He holds a
bachelor's degree from Alfred University, a master's degree from the University
of Chicago, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa. He is
the author of sixteen books of poetry, including Rampant (Copper Canyon,
2004); Nightworks: Poems, 1962-2000; Ardor:
The Book of the Dead Man, Volume 2 (1997); A Marvin Bell Reader:
Selected Poetry and Prose (1994); The Book of the Dead Man (1994); Iris
of Creation (1990); New and Selected Poems (1987); Stars Which
See, Stars Which Do Not See (1977), which was a finalist for the National
Book Award; A Probable Volume of Dreams (1969), which was a Lamont
Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets; and Things We Dreamt We
Died For (1966). He has also published Old Snow Just Melting: Essays and
Interviews (1983).
Marvin
Bell's work appears in hundreds of anthologies of poetry and essays. His former
students include Rita Dove, James Tate, Jorie Graham, John Irving, James Galvin, Norman Dubie,
McPeekVillatoro, Joy Hampl, Mary Swander,
Lee Blessing, and Marilyn Chin. His honors include the
American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, Guggenheim and
National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and Senior Fulbright appointments
to Yugoslavia and Australia. He is a long time member of the faculty of the
University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he is the Flannery O'Connor
Professor of Letters. In March 2000 he was selected to be Iowa's first Poet
Laureate.
Philip Terman’s collections of poems include The House of Sages
(Mammoth books, 1998; second edition, 2005), Book of the Unbroken Days (Mammoth
Books, 2005) Greatest Hits (Pudding House Press, 2005) and the
forthcoming Rabbis of the Air (Autumn House Press, 2007). His poems and
essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The New England Review, The
Gettysburg Review, Tikkun, and other journals.
He teaches at Clarion University and co-directs the Chautauqua Writers’
Festival at the Chautauqua Institute.
A widely
published writer nearly as well known for her fiction as for her poetry, Enid
Shomer is the author of four collections of poetry: Stars at Noon: Poems
from the Life of Jacqueline Cochran (University of Arkansas Press, 2001), Black
Drum (Arkansas, 1997), This Close to the Earth (Arkansas, 1992) and
Stalking the Florida Panther (The Word Works), which won the Washington
Prize. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Paris
Review, Best American Poetry, The New Criterion,
Kenyon Review, Tikkun, etc. Her collection of
stories, Imaginary Men, won the Iowa Fiction Prize as well as the LSU/Southern
Review Prize, both given annually for the best first collection of short
fiction by an American author. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker,
New Stories from the South, the Year's Best, Modern Maturity, New Letters,
Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Virginia Quarterly Review, etc. Her stories,
poems, and essays have been included in more than fifty anthologies and
textbooks, including POETRY: A HarperCollins Pocket Anthology.
Shomer's many awards include two fellowships in poetry from the National
Endowment for the Arts, three fellowships from the State of Florida, the Eunice
Tietjens Prize from Poetry, the Celia Wagner
Award of the Poetry Society of America, the Randall Jarrell Prize, Wildwood
Prize, and Eve of St. Agnes Prize. Her poem sequence, Pope Joan, was
adapted into a dance oratorio by composer Anne LeBaron
and choreographer Mark Taylor and premiered in October of 2000. In fiction, she
has also won the H.E. Frances Prize, the Iowa Woman Prize and, most
recently, the 2004 Emily Clark Balch Prize from the Virginia Quarterly
Review.
As a
Visiting Writer, Shomer has taught at the University of Arkansas, Florida State
University, and the Ohio State University, where she was the Thurber House
Writer-in-Residence. Her book reviews and essays have appeared in The New
Times Book Review, The Women's Review of Books, and elsewhere. Two
of her books, Stars at Noon and Imaginary Men, were the subject
of feature interviews on NPR's Morning Edition and also All Things
Considered. Recently, she was appointed Poetry Series Editor for the
University of Arkansas Press. Shomer lives in Tampa, Florida, and is currently
at work on a novel.
Tourist
Season: Stories
(Random
House, March 2007)
In Tourist
Season, award-winning author Enid Shomer offers ten brilliant,
unforgettable stories of resilient women aged seventeen to seventy, each at a
pivotal point in her life. Their journeys cross distances of place and mind: A
middle-aged Floridian who learns that she is the reincarnation of a Buddhist saint
takes daring steps on her path to enlightenment; a long-buried secret forces
one woman to leave the daughter she deeply loves; a Radcliffe student faces
shocking family truths and taboos during the summer of 1966; an unexpected
kinship forms between two women who land in a county jail after an excursion to
Las Vegas. These travelers wander through shifting emotional landscapes of
love, sex, and relationships, often after missing the destinations they'd hoped
to reach. Whether journeying to new geographical locales or
exploring uncharted personal terrain, Tourist Season offers a
provocative, engaging, and often humorous road map of the heart and soul.