Contemporary Writers Series 2005-2006
Tracy KidderOctober 13, 2005
4 p.m. -- Grupp Fireside Lounge
8 p.m. -- Montante Cultural Center
At 4 pm in the Grupp Fireside Lounge, Kidder will discuss Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World. The presentation will include selective readings, slides, and discussion shedding light on a book The New York Times called “inspiring, disturbing, daring, and completely absorbing.”
At 8 pm in the Montante Cultural Center, Kidder will read from his new book, My Detachment, a memoir of his year as an army officer in Vietnam. The evening will include a question-and-answer period, a book-signing, and reception.
Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and studied at the University of Iowa. He’s been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award. He is the author of seven works of nonfiction: The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among School Children, Old Friends, Home Town, and Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World. His new book is My Detachment, a memoir of his year as an army officer in Vietnam. He lives in Massachusetts and Maine.
Web Resources
Random House Review
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375506161
A review of Mountains Beyond Mountains.
New York State Writers Institute Page
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/kidder_tracy.html
Includes a short biography, bibliography and a list of Kidder’s awards.
Interviews
May 1999
http://www.bookpage.com/9905bp/tracy_kidder.html
Kidder discusses his book Home Town and its inspirations with Ellen Kanner of BookPage.com.
2000
http://www.andover.edu/publications/2000winter_bulletin/kidder/kidder.htm
In an interview with Elaine Hines of his alma mater, Phillips Academy, Kidder discusses his experiences at the boarding school and learning how to write.
October 12, 2004
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/gaz_kidder_tracy.html
Kidder discusses creative non-fiction writing and his book Mountains Beyond Mountains with Jack Rightmeyer of The Daily Gazette, a publication of SUNY Albany.
Ink Q&A
http://www.powells.com/ink/kidder.html
Kidder discusses his latest project and his favorite writers in this interview with the online bookstore powells.com.
Bios
Lettre Ulysses Award Bio
http://www.lettre-ulysses-award.org/authors04/kidder.html
Includes a short biography of Kidder’s life and a list of his writings.
Brock ClarkeThursday, February 9, 2006
8 p.m. -- Marie Maday Theater
Brock Clarke grew up in Little Falls, NY, earned an undergraduate degree from Dickinson College, and received his Ph.D. in American literature from the University of Rochester. He is the author a novel, The Ordinary White Boy ( Harcourt 2001), and a short-story collection, What We Won't Do (Sarbande 2002), which won the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. His latest book is Carrying the Torch, a collection of stories published by University of Nebraska Press, is the winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction. His work has been published and anthologized in many magazines, including New Stories from the South, Georgia Review, New England Review, Southern Review, Five Points, and The Believer. Currently, he is associate professor of English at the University of Cincinnati.
Web Resources
Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts
http://www.gulfcoastmag.org/GCIssues/gc15.2_folder/15.2Reviews/Reynolds
/gc15.2R_Reynolds.html
Aaron Reynolds reviews Clarke's debut novel The Ordinary White Boy and his short-story collection What We Won't Do.
Clarke’s Short Story, “Plowing the Secondaries”
http://cat.middlebury.edu/~nereview/clarke.html
From The New England Review.
Clarke’s Short Story, “The Price of the Haircut”
https://www.bu.edu/agni/fiction/print/2005/61-clarke.html
Published in AGNI Magazine of Boston University.
Interviews
May 2002
http://www.citybeat.com/2002-05-02/books.shtml
In an interview with Rebecca Lomax of the Cincinnati CityBeat, Clarke discusses his "ordinary" characters.
September 29, 2003
http://kevinholtsberry.com/blog/archives/003087.html
Clarke discusses his novel The Ordinary White Boy, writing, race, and being ordinary in this interview with Kevin Holtsberry conducted via email.
Summer 2003
http://www.dickinson.edu/magazine/fall03/feature1a.html
In an interview with Barbara Snyder Stambaugh of Dickinson Magazine, a publication of Clarke's alma mater Dickinson College, Clarke discusses his characters and creative writing.
Bios
Clemson University Bio
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/cedp/clarke.htm
This site includes a brief biography on Clarke, reviews of his book What We Won't Do, and a link to "Specify the Learners," a short story from What We Won't Do.
Paul Muldoon -- Third Annual Hassett ReadingThursday, March 2, 2006
8 p.m. -- Grupp Fireside Lounge
The Times Literary Supplement has called Paul Muldoon “the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War.” A native of Northern Ireland, Muldoon is the author of nine books of poetry, including Poems 1968-1998 (2001) and Moy Sand and Gravel, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. Among his awards are an American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature, the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry, the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award, and the 2004 Shakespeare Prize. In 1999 he was elected to the five-year term of Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford. He is currently Howard G.B. Clark ’21 Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University, where he directs the creative writing program.
Web Resources
The Official Paul Muldoon Website
http://www.paulmuldoon.net/index.php4
An informational site which includes Muldoon’s biography, bibliography, and audio recordings of selected poems.
Muldoon’s Academy of American Poets Website
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=212
Includes a brief biography, an audio recording and links to other websites about Muldoon.
Ploughshares Literary Journal
http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmArticleID=4886
An article by Sven Birkerts which analyzes Muldoon's poetry in depth.
Interviews
2001
http://www.booksense.com/people/archive/muldoonpaul.jsp
Muldoon discusses reading and teaching poetry with Gavin J. Grant of BookSense.com.
Selected Poems
Muldoon’s Poem, “The Mountain is Holding Out”
http://www.octopusmagazine.com/issue05/poets/Paul_Muldoon.htm
From OctopusMagazine, Issue 5.
Muldoon’s Poem, “The Sightseers”
http://www.thirteen.org/foolingwithwords/main_muldoon.html
From the website of PBS’ series “Fooling with Words.”
Bios
A Short Biography, Bibliography and Brief Critical Analyses
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth126
Along with a brief biography and bibliography, this website also provides a list of prizes and awards Muldoon has received and critical analyses of selected works.
Sandra Benitez Thursday, April 6, 2006
8 p.m. -- Marie Maday Theatre
Sandra Benitez spent her youth in Mexico, El Salvador, and Missouri. Benitez is the author of Night of the Radishes, published by Hyperion in January, 2004, The Weight of All Things, a Book Sense 76 pick and a Star Tribune Talking Volumes selection, Bitter Grounds, winner of an American Book Award and A Place Where the Sea Remembers, which won a Barnes and Noble Discover Award and the Minnesota Book Award. Her work has been translated into six languages. She is a past Keller-Edelstein Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Minnesota, and was a recipient of the Knapp Chair in Humanities at the University of San Diego. Among other awards, Benitez has won a McKnight Award of Distinction in Fiction as well as a Bush Fellowship and the 2004 National Hispanic Heritage Award Honoree for Literature. In addition, Hispanic Business Magazine listed Benitez as one of the 100 Influential Hispanics of 2004. Benitez lives with her husband in Edina, Minnesota.
Web Resources
The Official Sandra Benitez Website
http://www.sandrabenitez.com/indexbv.html
Includes a biography, excerpts from each of Benitez’s four novels, and a list of literary honors.
El Paso Times Review
http://www.rigobertogonzalez.com/032804.htm
A review of Night of the Radishes.
The Western Front Review
http://www.wcug.wwu.edu/%7Ewfront/1998/October/accent327.html
A review of Bitter Grounds, which includes a link to an interview with Jenni Odekirk.
Interviews
March 13, 1997
http://www.mndaily.com/ae/Print/1997/10/st/feben.html
Benitez discusses the inspiration for her second novel Bitter Grounds with Shannon Olson.
March 25, 2001
http://www.lasmujeres.com/sandrabenitez/mothercountry.shtml#top
In an interview with John Habich, Benitez discusses Latino literature and her decision to become a writer of it.
Author! Author! Online Interview
http://www.hclib.org/pub/books/AuthorOnlineMay04.cfm
Benitez discusses her latest novel Night of the Radishes and how it differs from her other works in this interview with Hennepin County Library.
Bios
VG: Voices from the Gaps
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/benitez_sandra.html
Includes a short biography, bibliography, and links to other websites about Benitez.