News and Events

B. T. Shaw grew up in central Ohio near her great-grandparents' homestead. Now settled in Portland with her husband and children, she edits the poetry column for The Oregonian and teaches writing and literature at Portland State University and the University of Portland , as well as through writers-in-the-schools programs. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, FIELD, Orion, Poetry Northwest, the Seattle Review, Tin House, and Willow Springs. She holds a BS from the University of Oregon and a MFA from the University of Washington. This Dirty Little Heart is her first book.

B.T. Shaw will read from her work on Thursday, October 16 at 12:30 p.m. in the Denney Hall Commons Room (DE 311). The reading is free and open to the public.

(source: Eastern University Press)

Mark Svenvold's second book of poems, Empire Burlesque, won the 2007 Journal Award for Poetry and was published by Ohio State University Press. He was winner of a Discovery/The Nation award, and his first book, Soul Data, won the Vassar Miller Award, selected by Heather McHugh. A 2007 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Nonfiction, Svenvold has written about bicycle nomads for Orion Magazine; wildcat oil geology for Fortune; offshore wind power for The New York Times Magazine, tornadoes and the culture of catastrophilia for his book Big Weather (Henry Holt & Co, 2005); and unraveled the bizarre career of a Long Beach, California, fun house mummy in Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw, (Basic Books, 2002), movie rights for which have been optioned by Aaron Mendelsohn, with John Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) attached to star. He was Fordham University's Poet-in-Residence from 2002 to 2005 and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Seton Hall University.

Mark Svenvold will read from his work on Thursday, October 23 at 7:00 p.m. in the Denney Hall Commons Room (DE 311). The reading is free and open to the public.

Diana Abu-Jaber is the author of Crescent, which was awarded the 2004 PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction and the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award and was named one of the twenty best novels of 2003 by The Christian Science Monitor, and Arabian Jazz, which won the 1994 Oregon Book Award and was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award. She teaches at Portland State University and divides her time between Portland and Miami.

Diana Abu-Jaber will read from her work on Wednesday, November 5 at 7:30p.m. in the Drake Union Thurber Theatre. The reading is free and open to the public.

(source: Dian Abu-Jaber Web site)

Thomas Lynch is an essayist, poet and funeral director of Lynch & Sons funeral home in Milford, Michigan. His most recent book, released this past June 2005, is "Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans."

Other more recent books include: "The Undertaking," "Still Life in Milford" and "Bodies in Motion and at Rest." He published his first volume of poetry, "Skating with Heather Grace" in 1987. Following this unique collection of poems, in 1994, he published his next volume of poetry "Grimalkin & Other Poems."

He is regularly featured on the op-ed page of The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Times of London, as well as in the pages of Harper's. He has appeared on C-SPAN, MSNBC, the NBC "Today" program and the PBS series "On Our Own Terms."

Thomas Lynch will read from his work on Thursday, November 6 at 7:00 p.m. in the Denney Hall Commons Room (DE 311). The reading is free and open to the public.

(source: Thomas Lynch Web site)

Sue Miller has written a collection of short stories, a memoir, and eight novels, including While I Was Gone, The Good Mother, and The Senator's Wife. She has won a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, the Carl Sandburg Prize from the Chicago Public Library, and she has been nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, and for The Orange Prize. She has been a committed advocate for the writer's engagement with society at large through her work with PEN New England. She has taught fiction at Amherst, Bennington, Tufts, and MIT, among other places. She lives in Boston.

Sue Miller will read from her work on Tuesday, January 13 at 7:00 p.m. in the Wexner Film/Video Theatre. The reading is free and open to the public.

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, DLitt (Hon), is an attending physician in the medical clinic at Bellevue Hospital, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine. She divides her time between seeing patients, teaching medical students and residents, editing and writing.

Dr. Ofri was born in New York City. She studied physiology as an undergraduate at McGill University in Montreal. She spent the next decade at New York University Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital for her medical and scientific education. She obtained her PhD in biochemistry along with her MD, followed by a residency at Bellevue in internal medicine.

After residency, Dr. Ofri spent nearly two years traveling. She worked as a free-lance physician in a variety of communities from East Hampton to rural New Mexico. These stories have been published in numerous literary and medical journals, and are collected in her first book, Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue. Dr. Ofri's second book, Incidental Findings: Lessons From My Patients on the Art of Medicine, was published in 2005 by Beacon Press.

Dr. Ofri's essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, the Los Angeles Times, and on National Public Radio. Her writings have been included in Best American Essays 2002 and 2005, and Best American Science Writing 2003. She is the recipient of the Missouri Review Editor's Prize for nonfiction and the McGovern award by the American Medical Writers Association.

Dr. Ofri lives in New York with her husband, three children, and dog. Danielle Ofri will read from her work on Monday, February 9 at 7:00 p.m. in the Ross Heart Hospital Auditorium 1213. The reading is free and open to the public.

(source: Danielle Ofri Web site)

Lucille Clifton is one of the most beloved and respected figures in American poetry today, widely acclaimed for her powerful explorations of race, womanhood, spirituality, and mortality. She has published 12 collections of her poetry, one autobiographical prose work and 19 children's books, with more on the way. She received the National Book Award for Poetry for her book, Blessing the Boats (BOA 2000). Her most recent book of poems is Mercy (BOA 2005); other titles include Ordinary Woman, Quilting, and The Book of Light. Her work has been anthologized in close to 200 anthologies of poetry.

Ms. Clifton has received many fellowships and awards for her poetry collections and children's books, including the 2007 Ruth Lilly Prize, Shelley Memorial Prize, a Charity Randall Citation, an Emmy Award from the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, selection as a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, a Lannan Achievement Award in Poetry and a Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Writer's Award. Ms. Clifton served as distinguished Professor of Humanities and holder of the Hilda C. Landers Endowed chair in the Liberal Arts at St. Mary's College of Maryland until her retirement in the fall of 2005. She continues to serve St. Mary's as Professor emeritus and Friend to the College. She served as Poet Laureate of the State of Maryland from 1975-1985. Ms. Clifton serves on the board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Lucille Clifton will read from her work on Tuesday, April 21 at 7: 00 p.m. in the Wexner Film/Video Theatre. The reading is free and open to the public.

(source: Blue Flower Arts)

Jean Valentine, the current State Poet of New York (2008-2010), was born in Chicago, earned her B.A. from Radcliffe College, and has lived most of her life in New York City. She won the Yale Younger Poets Award for her first book, Dream Barker, in 1965. Her most recent book is Little Boat (Wesleyan University Press, 2007). Her previous collection, Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965 - 2003, was the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry.

Author of eight other books, Jean has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and awards from the NEA, The Bunting Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation, The New York Council for the Arts, and The New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as the Maurice English Prize, the Teasdale Poetry Prize, The Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Prize, and the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

She has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the Graduate Writing Program of New York University, Columbia University, and the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, among many other places.

Jean Valentine will read from her work on Thursday, May 14 at 7:00 p.m. in the Denney Hall Commons Room (DE 311). The reading is free and open to the public.

(source: Jean Valentine Web site)