Reading Series
2008-2009
Visiting Writers Reading Series
Each reading begins at 5 p.m. in Kleymeyer
Hall in USI's Liberal Arts Center
and is followed by a reception and book signing. All readings are free and open to the public. Publications by these authors are available
to purchase at USI Bookstore and Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
Fall 2008
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Holly Goddard
Jones

September 18, 2008
5 p.m. |
Holly
Goddard Jones is the winner of the 2007 Rona Jaffe Foundation
Writer's Award, which carries a whopping $25,000 cash prize.
Her work has appeared in
The Gettysburg Review,
The Kenyon Review,
Epoch,
The Hudson Review, and
The Southern Review.
Her story “Theory of
Reality” was selected by ZZ Packer for
New Stories from the South 2008, and “Proof of God” was picked by George
Pelicanos for
Best American Mystery
Stories 2008.
Her story "Life Expectancy" was selected
by Edward P. Jones to be included in
New Stories from the South:
The
Year's Best.
Jones was raised in
Kentucky, which serves as the setting for much of
her work.
Edward P. Jones says of her work, "She applies the
compass from her upbringing to the sophisticated narratives she fashions.
That is, she is never tempted by her own cleverness to veer from the story's
true soul.
Her characters span every age group, and their
problems and thoughts are thoroughly steeped in real life."
Jones, 27, has just sold her first story
collection,
Girl Trouble, to
Harper Perennial with a scheduled release in September 2009.
She is Assistant Professor in the department of
English and Philosophy at
Murray
State
University.
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Kristine Rae
Anderson is the 2007 Mary C. Mohr Poetry Award winner.
Her poems have appeared in
Crab Creek Review,
Entelechy International,
Phase and Cycle, the
anthology Active Voices IV, and elsewhere.
She has written book
reviews recently published in Dotlit: The Online Journal of
Creative Writing and Alehouse.
In 2005 Kristine was awarded a Tomales Bay Fellowship in
poetry, and she was awarded a Fishtrap Fellowship for 2006.
She teaches English at
Riverside
Community College (Riverside,
California).
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Kristine
Rae Anderson

October 6, 2008
5 p.m.
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Gary Fincke
October 14, 2008
5 p.m. |
A 2003 winner
of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction (Sorry I Worried You),
Gary Fincke has published sixteen books of poetry and short
fiction, most recently Standing Around the Heart.
In 2002, Fincke completed
Writing Letters
For the Blind, which won the 2003 Ohio State University Press/The
Journal poetry prize, and
The Stone Child, a collection of
short stories that earned Fincke praise as “one of literary America’s
best-kept secrets.” Winner of the Bess Hokin Prize from
Poetry
magazine and the Rose Lefcowitz Prize from Poet Lore, Gary Fincke
has also received a PEN Syndicated Fiction Prize as well as seven
fellowships for creative writing from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in
Harper's, Newsday, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, The Georgia
Review, American Scholar, and
Doubletake. Twice awarded Pushcart Prizes for his work, Fincke recently
had his prize-winning essay "The Canals of Mars" reprinted in
The
Pushcart Essays, an anthology of the best nonfiction printed during the
first twenty-five years of Pushcart Prize volumes. His story "The Blazer
Sestina" won the 2003 George Garrett Fiction Prize.
Gary Fincke is director of the Writers Institute
and a professor of English and creative writing at
Susquehanna University in
Selinsgrove,
Pennsylvania.
Specializing in creative writing, he teaches introductory and advanced
workshops in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction while overseeing
independent writing projects, practica, and internships for writing majors.
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Spring 2009
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Lee K. Abbott is
author of Dreams of Distant Lives, Strangers in
Paradise, Love is the Crooked Thing, The Heart
Never Fits Its Wanting, Living After Midnight, Wet
Places at Noon, all collections of stories. His many short
stories and reviews, as well as articles on American Literature,
have appeared in such journals and magazines as
Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, The New York
Times Book Review, The Southern Review, Epoch, Boulevard,
and The North American Review.
His fiction has been often reprinted in The Best
American Short Stories and The Prize Stories:
The O'Henry Awards.
He has twice won fellowships
from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was awarded a Major
Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council in 1991.
His latest collection of
stories, All Things, All at Once:
New & Selected Stories,
was published by Norton in June of 2006.
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Lee K. Abbott

January 29, 2009
5 p.m.
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Molly Giles
March 25, 2009
5 p.m.
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Molly Giles is a winner of the Pushcart Prize,
Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, Small Press
Book Award,
Boston Globe Award, Bay
Area Book
Reviewers Award, PEN Syndicated Fiction Award and a
fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts;
she is also a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize.
Her stories have been
featured on National Public Radio’s “Selected
Shorts.”
Long
renowned as a brilliant short story writer, Molly Giles made
a triumphant debut as a novelist in 2000 with the
critically acclaimed
Iron Shoes.
Giles is Professor
and Director of Programs in Creative Writing at the
University
of Arkansas.
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Norman Minnick was born
and grew up in Louisville,
Kentucky.
He holds a B.A. in art from Marian
College
in Indianapolis and earned an M.F.A.
in creative writing from
Florida International
University
in Miami the same year he was awarded
an Academy of
American Poets Prize.
Minnick returned to Indianapolis, where he lives with his wife and
two young children.
He
teaches at Butler
University
and the Writers’
Center
of Indiana.
His collection,
To Taste the
Water, blends elements of nature, family, and Asian poetry, and
was awarded the First Series Award for Poetry by Mid-List Press.
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Norman Minnick

April 14, 2009
5 p.m.
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For more information, call
Nicole Reid,
USI assistant professor of creative writing, 812/464-1916.
Presented by the USI College of Liberal Arts, the RopeWalk Reading Series is made possible through the support of RopeWalk Writers Retreat, the
Southern Indiana Review, USI Society for Arts & Humanities,
National Endowment for the Arts, Indiana Arts Commission, and USI Student Writers’ Union.