2017-2018 Academic Year

Edwidge Danticat

In residence Oct 26-27

Public reading October 26, 2017, 7:00 PM, Gorecki 204 A&B

View her public reading here.

Edwidge Danticat has received numerous awards and honors, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography, the American Book Award, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction.  She will be on campus to celebrate her new Sister Mariella Gable Award-winning book, The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story.

The Art of Death grew from her experience mourning the death of her mother, and it is an exceptional blend of critical and personal writing. If writers are told to “write what you know,” death is the one thing that is ultimately unknowable: we witness the moment right before, or right after, but the reality remains elusive, and writers unavoidably focus on life. In this astute and intimate work of criticism, Danticat assesses how writers as different as Toni Morrison, Taye Selasi, and C.S. Lewis have approached death, grief, and loss, and it culminates with her channeling the voice of her mother. It’s impossible to emerge unmoved from this profound and incisive book.

From Graywolf Press's Art of series of books on the craft of writing.

Edwidge Danticat on a city of survivors; Tales of Port-Au-Prince: Letting Haitians Speak for Themselves

Solmaz Sharif

In residence Nov 15-16

Public reading November 15-16, 2017, 7:00 PM, Colman Theater, BAC

Solmaz Sharif's Look is a powerful, innovative exploration of the language of war by a new poet of passion and conscience. It was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry, named one of the New York Times Book Review's 100 notable Books of 2016, a A Publisher's Weekly Best Book of 2016, a Washington Post Best Poetry Collection of 2016, one of The New Yorker's "Books We Loved" in 2016, and one of the San Franciso Chronicle's 100 Recommended Books of 2016.

Find out more about Sharif here.

Kevin Young

In residence March 20-22

Public reading March 21, 2018, 7:00 pm, Gorecki 204 B

John Coy and Gaylord Schanilec 

In residence April 18-20, 2018

Public Reading 7:00 pm Main TRC Boardroom CSB

 John Coy is the author of young adult novels, the 4 for 4 middle-grade series, and fiction and nonfiction picture books.  He has received numerous awards for his work including a Marion Vannett Ridgway Award for best debut picture book, a Charlotte Zolotow Honor, Bank Street College Best Book of the Year, Notable Book for a Global Society, the Burr/Warzalla Award for Distinguished Achievement in Children’s Literature and the the Kerlan Award in recognition of singular attainments in the creation of children’s literature. John lives in Minneapolis and visits schools around the world.

 Gaylord Schanilec is an American wood engraver, printer, designer and illustrator. He is the proprietor of the press Midnight Paper Sales, located in Stockholm, Wisconsin.

 Wood engraver Gaylord Schanilec and author John Coy discuss their book project My Mighty Journey.