Writers series:

Below is a schedule of spring semester readings in the College of Charleston Visiting Writers‚ Series, followed by short biographical sketches of each author or poet. (Information on question-and-answer sessions is not yet in place, but each writer will offer one.) All readings are free and open to the public. I hope you can attend and will pass the word to others. As always, our thanks go to Carol Ann Davis for her hard work organizing the Series. February 24: Poet Marianne Boruch. 7:30 p.m., Alumni Hall March 3: Novelist/nonfiction Michael Pearson. 7:30, Alumni Hall March 24: Novelist Mark Powell. 7:30 p.m., Alumni Memorial Hall April 7: Poet Dara Wier. 7:30 p.m., Alumni Memorial Hall Marianne Boruch, poet, has taught at the University of Maine at Farmington, the University of Wisconsin and Tunghai University in Taiwan. Currently she teaches in and directs the MFA program at Purdue University. She has published five books of poems, View from the Gazebo, Descendant, Moss Burning, A Stick that Breaks and Breaks, and one book of essays, Poetry's Old Air. A second book of essays is forthcoming in March. Her poems and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Nation, The Antioch Review, The Georgia Review, and many other publications. She has received several grants, including two NEA fellowships in poetry. Her most recent book is Poems New & Selected, Oberlin College Press. Michael Pearson, novelist and nonfiction writer, is the director of the creative writing program at Old Dominion University. He has published essays and stories in The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and Creative Nonfiction, among others. He is the author of several books. His first book, Imagined Places: Journeys Into Literary America, was published in 1991 and listed by The New York Times Book Review as one of the notable books of the year. Another book, Dreaming of Columbus: A Boyhood in the Bronx, was published in 1999. Willie Morris, the former editor of Harper's, said, "Michael Pearson is one of our nation's finest memoirists. Dreaming of Columbus...should give him the reputation among American writers he so richly deserves." Shohola Falls, a novel, was published last year. Mark Powell is the author of the novel Prodigals, a finalist for the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel and nominated for the VCU First Novelist Prize. He is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the College of Charleston. In 2004 he received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Breadloaf Writers' Conference. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The South Carolina Review, Rivendell, and Yemassee. His novella "Next Time by Fire" will be serialized throughout 2005 by the journal Ellipsis. Dara Wier is the author of Hat on a Pond, nominated for a Phi Beta Kappa Award; Voyages in English; Our Master Plan; Blue for the Plough; The Book of Knowledge; All You Have in Common; The 8-Step Grapevine; and Blood, Hook & Eye. Recent work has appeared in the Best American Poetry and The Pushcart Prize Anthology. Her awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is also a recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review. Her permanent residence is Amherst where she directs the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts. Recent work has appeared in Conduit, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Court Green, jubilat, and Volt. Reverse Rapture, a long poem in book form, is due out in April. Contact Carol Ann Davis for more information at davisca@cofc.edu or 953-7269.

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