Arts & Culture

Author Dana Spiotta in the spotlight for next installment of Raymond Carver Reading Series

Friday, September 16, 2011, By News Staff

The Fall 2011 Raymond Carver Reading Series will continue with award-winning fiction writer Dana Spiotta, assistant professor of creative writing in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 28 in Gifford Auditorium in H.B. Crouse Hall on the SU campus. The reading will be preceded by a question and answer session from 3:45 to 4:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU’s paid lots.

spiottaAuthor of three novels, Spiotta will read from her latest work, “Stone Arabia” (Scribner, 2011), hailed by a New York Times critic as a “ … gritty, intelligent, mordant and deeply sad novel … a work of visceral honesty and real beauty.” It’s a story of family, sibling relationships, obsession, memory and the urge to create—in isolation, at the margins of our winner-take-all culture. Spiotta’s “Lightning Field” (Scribner, 2001) won a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the West. Her second novel, “Eat the Document” (Scribner, 2006), was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award and a recipient of the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Spiotta was a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow (2007-2008), a fellow of the New York Foundation for the Arts (2008) and a recipient of the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize for Literature (2008-2009), presented by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy in Rome. Her novels have been published in France, Germany, the U.K., China, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States.

Named for the great short story writer and poet who taught at SU in the 1980s, the Raymond Carver Reading Series is a vital part of Syracuse’s literary life. Presented by the Creative Writing Program in The College of Arts and Sciences, the series each year brings 12 to 14 prominent writers to campus to read their works and interact with students.

Fall 2011 Series Schedule

The Series will continue with the following authors. All readings begin at 5:30 p.m. in Gifford Auditorium. Question and answer sessions are from 3:45-4:30 p.m. Further information is available by calling 315-443-2174.

  • Oct. 19: Iain Haley Pollack G’07, who teaches English at Chestnut Hill Academy, Philadelphia, was awarded the 2011 Cave Canem Poetry Prize for his manuscript “Spit Back a Boy” (University of Georgia Press, 2011).
  • Oct. 26: Terese Svoboda, author of 13 books, the latest of which is “Bohemian Girl” (Bison Books, 2011), which has been called a cross between “True Grit” and “Huckleberry Finn.”
  • Nov. 9: Jennifer Grotz, author of two books of poetry, “The Needle” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011) and “Cusp” (2003).
  • Nov. 30: Peter Balakian, author of many books, including six books of poems, the most recent being “Ziggurat” (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
  • Dec. 7: Christopher Kennedy, professor and author of four poetry collections, including his most recent, “Ennui Prophet” (BOA Editions Ltd., 2011).