The Fall 2019 Barbara & David Zalaznick Creative Writing Reading Series kicks off with a reading by acclaimed Chinese American poet & National Book Award finalist Jenny Xie.
Reading by Jenny Xie
Thursday, September 19, 4:30 p.m.
Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, 132 Goldwin Smith Hall
Reception and book signing to follow in the English Lounge, 258 Goldwin Smith Hall
Jenny Xie was born in Hefei, China, and raised in New Jersey. She is the author of Eye Level, which was selected by Juan Felipe Herrera for the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets. Eye Level also received the Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University, was named a finalist for the National Book Award and a PEN Open Book Award, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her chapbook, Nowhere to Arrive, won the Drinking Gourd Prize. Xie holds degrees from Princeton University and NYU, and has received grants and support from Kundiman, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and Poets & Writers. Her work appears in POETRY, The New York Times Magazine, and Tin House, among other publications. She has taught creative writing at NYU and Princeton University, and currently lives in New York.
MorganFest: A Robert Morgan Celebration
Thursday, October 3, 8:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.
*Silver Birch Suite, Statler Hall (5th floor)
*unless otherwise noted
The Department of English is planning a major celebration to honor Robert Morgan. The event will include panels, a conversation, a reading, and other tributes to one of Cornell’s most beloved professors. An award-winning poet, fiction writer, novelist, historian and biographer and scholar, Morgan remains an inspiring teacher and beloved colleague. Please join us in celebrating his remarkable achievements and profound influence in American Letters.
MorganFest Reading
*Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium, G70 Klarman Hall
The Fall 2019 Barbara & David Zalaznick Creative Writing Reading Series continues with this celebration in honor of poet, novelist, and professor Robert Morgan. Morgan and three of his former students will read from their own works:
Robert Morgan, Poet & Novelist
Robert Morgan was born on October 3, 1944 in Hendersonville, North Carolina, near the Blue Ridge Mountains. His early studies included music, science, and engineering, but writing proved to be his truest passion. His first published books were collections of poems, earthy in sensibility and grounded in the rhythms of work. Though he continues to write poetry, Morgan has devoted much of his creative energy to short stories and novels that draw on the rich history of Appalachia, including the bestseller Gap Creek (1999) and Chasing the North Star (2016). Most recently Morgan has turned to biography, on subjects ranging from Daniel Boone to Edgar Allan Poe. Since 1971 he has taught at Cornell University, where he is now the Kappa Alpha Professor of English and much loved as a writer, poet, colleague, and mentor.
Elizabeth Holmes MFA '87, Poet
Elizabeth Holmes is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Passing Worlds: Tahiti in the Era of Captain Cook (LSU Press, 2018). She lives in Ithaca, New York, and works as a writer at Cornell University.
Lynn Powell MFA '80, Poet & Nonfiction Writer
Lynn Powell has published three books of poetry, including Season of the Second Thought, and a nonfiction book, Framing Innocence. Her honors include an NEA Fellowship, the Brittingham and the Felix Pollak Prizes in poetry, and the Studs & Ida Terkel Award for nonfiction. She teaches at Oberlin College.
Robert Schultz MFA '76, MA '78, PhD '81, Author & Artist
Robert Schultz’s work includes three poetry collections, a novel, a nonfiction work, and an art book. He has received an NEA Award, The Virginia Quarterly Review’s Balch Prize, and Cornell’s Corson Bishop Poetry Prize. Schultz’s artwork is held by the U.S. Library of Congress, the University of Virginia, and private collectors.
Purchase books by the authors from the Campus Store before the reading to have them signed. Look for the MorganFest display.
Reading by Desiree Cooper
Thursday, October 24, 4:30 p.m.
Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium, G70 Klarman Hall
The Fall 2019 Barbara & David Zalaznick Creative Writing Reading Series comes to a close with a reading by Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist & women's rights activist Desiree Cooper.
Desiree Cooper is a 2015 Kresge Artist Fellow, former attorney and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist. Her debut collection of flash fiction, Know the Mother, has won numerous awards including 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award. Cooper’s fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in The Best Small Fictions 2018, Callaloo, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hypertext Review, and Best African American Fiction 2010, among other publications. In 2018, she wrote, produced and co-directed “The Choice,” a short film about reproductive rights and recipient of the 2019 Berlin Flash Film Festival’s Outstanding Achievement Award, and an Award of Merit from the Los Angeles Best Short Film Festival. Cooper was a founding board member of Cave Canem, a national residency for black poets.
For a calendar view, please visit the University's English Events Calendar.
ALL EVENTS ARE FREE and open to the public.
The color scheme for Fall 2019 Zalaznick Reading Series publicity was inspired by LIVING CORAL (Pantone’s 2019 Color of the Year), and selected to draw attention to the plight of the world’s coral reefs. Coral reefs are in grave danger of dying out completely due to human-induced stresses, and their demise affects the entire ocean ecosystem. Often referred to as the rainforests of the oceans, reefs provide habitat for a million species, including a fourth of the world’s fish. They also protect coastlines against erosion from tropical storms and act as a barrier to sea-level rise.
