Karen Russell, winner of the 2012 National Magazine Award for Fiction and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her novel “Swamplandia” (Knopf Doubleday, 2011) kicks off the Fall 2016 Raymond Carver Reading Series on Wednesday, Sept. 14, in Gifford Auditorium. A Q&A will take place at 3:45 p.m., with Russell reading passages from her work at 5:30 p.m.
The Raymond Carver Reading Series is presented by the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences. All events are free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU pay lots.
Karen Russell
Russell is the Leonard and Elise Elman Visiting Writer at Syracuse University. A native of Miami currently living in Oregon, she was a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2012 fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and a 2013 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. In addition to “Swamplandia,” Russell is the author of two books of short stories: “Vampires in the Lemon Grove” (Gale Group, 2013) and “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” (Knopf Doubleday, 2006).
Other writers appearing this fall:
Ilyse Kusnetz G’92
Wednesday, Sept. 28
Ilyse Kusnetz
Poet and journalist Kusnetz is the author of “Small Hours” (Truman State University Press, 2014), winner of the 2014 T.S. Eliot Prize from Truman State University Press, and “The Gravity of Falling” (La Vita Poetica Press, 2006). Her poetry has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, the Cincinnati Review, Crazyhorse, Stone Canoe, Rattle and other journals and anthologies. She earned an M.A. in creative writing at Syracuse University and a Ph.D. in feminist and postcolonial British literature at the University of Edinburgh. She teaches at Valencia College and lives in Orlando, Fla.
Paisley Rekdal
Wednesday, Oct. 12
Paisley Rekdal
Paisley Rekdal’s book of poetry “Animal Eye” (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012) was a finalist for the 2013 Kingsley Tufts Prize and the Balcones Prize, and winner of the UNT Rilke Prize. She has written four other books of poetry: “Imaginary Vessels” (Copper Canyon Press, 2016), “The Invention of the Kaleidoscope” (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), “Six Girls Without Pants” (Eastern Washington University, 2002) and “A Crash of Rhinos” (University of Georgia Press, 2000). She is also the author of “Intimate: An American Family Photo Album” (Tupelo Press, 2012), a hybrid-genre photo-text memoir that combines poetry, fiction, nonfiction and photography; and “The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee” (Knopf, 2000), a book of essays. Rekdal is the recipient of numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes and the 2016 AWP Nonfiction Prize. She teaches at the University of Utah.
Annie Liontas G’13
Wednesday, Oct. 26
Annie Liontas
Liontas’ debut novel, “Let Me Explain You” (Scribner, 2015), was featured in The New York Times Book Review as an Editor’s Choice and was selected by the American Booksellers Association as a 2015 Indies Introduce Debut and Indies Next title. She is co-editor of the anthology “A Manner of Being: Writers on their Mentors” and recipient of a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, BOMB, Guernica, Ninth Letter and Lit. Since 2003, Liontas has been dedicated to urban education, working with teachers and youth in Newark, N.J., and Philadelphia. She lives in Philadelphia.
Matthew Olzmann
Wednesday, Nov. 9
Matthew Olzmann
Olzmann’s first book of poems, “Mezzanines” (Alice James Books, 2013), was selected for the Kundiman Prize. His second book, “Contradictions in the Design” (Alice James Books), will be published in November. Olzmann has received scholarships and fellowships from Kundiman, the Kresge Arts Foundation and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His poems, stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Kenyon Review, New England Review, Necessary Fiction, Brevity and Southern Review. He is co-editor of “The Collagist.”
Peter Carey
Wednesday, Dec. 7
Peter Carey
Carey is the Jane and Daniel Present Lecturer in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of 14 novels (including one for children), two volumes of short stories and two books on travel. Carey has won the Booker Prize twice (for “Oscar and Lucinda” and “True History of the Kelly Gang”), the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize twice (for “Jack Maggs” and “True History of the Kelly Gang”) and the Miles Franklin Literary Award three times (for “Bliss,” “Oscar and Lucinda” and “Jack Maggs”). His most recent novels are “Amnesia” (Knopf Doubleday, 2015), “The Chemistry of Tears” (Faber and Faber, 2012) and “Parrot and Olivier in America,” (Knopf Doubleday, 2010). He has been awarded three honorary degrees and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Australian Academy of Humanities and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A native of Australia, Carey lives in New York and teaches creative writing at New York University.
The Raymond Carver Reading Series is supported by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Syracuse University Library Associates, Stephen King, the Dr. Scholl Foundation, the Lynn & David Pleet ’53 Fund for Creative Writing, the Richard Elman Visiting Writer Fund, the Friends of Creative Writing, Chris Tennyson, Jerome Cohen and the Interdisciplinary Fund for the Humanities from Leonard and Elise Elman.
