Spalding University’s Festival of Contemporary Writing, the state’s largest fall-spring reading series, will be held November 12-18, featuring readings by faculty, guests, and alumni of Spalding University’s brief-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing program. All readings are free, ticketless, and open to the public.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the program. A reading at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, November 13, serves as part of the birthday celebration, with reception and cake-cutting to follow.

Festival of Contemporary Writing events will be held at Spalding’s Egan Leadership Center lectorium, located at the corner of Fourth and Breckinridge streets, and at the Brown Hotel (335 W. Broadway) as noted. Plenty of free parking is available for the campus readings. Authors may or may not read from the work listed below.

5:30-6:45 p.m. Saturday, November 12 (ELC Lectorium)

• Helena Kriel (screenwriting), Skin

• John Pipkin (fiction), Woodsburner

• Joyce McDonald (writing for children & young adults), Devil on My Heels

• Randall Horton (poetry), The Lingua Franca of Ninth Street

• Dianne Aprile (nonfiction), The Eye Is Not Enough: On Seeing and Remembering

• Kira Obolensky (playwriting), Raskol

3:30-4:45 p.m. Sunday, November 13 (ELC Lectorium)

This reading is part of the MFA Program’s 10^th anniversary celebration. A reception and cake-cutting follow.

• Silas House, author (with Neela Vaswani) of Same Sun Here

• Maureen Morehead, author of The Melancholy Teacher

• Eric Schmiedl, playwright of Fishing for Something

• Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Adam & Eve

6:00-7:00 p.m. Sunday, November 13. Celebration of Recently Published Books. (ELC Lectorium)

• Lesléa Newman (writing for children & young adults), Donovan’s Big Day

• K. L. Cook (fiction), Love Songs for the Quarantined

• Robert Finch (nonfiction), A Cape Cod Notebook

• Susan Campbell Bartoletti (writing for children & young adults), Naamah and the Ark at Night

Book signing to follow. Books provided by Follett Bookstore at Spalding University

7:30-8:45 p.m. Monday, November 14 (ELC Lectorium)

• Louella Bryant (fiction; nonfiction), Full Bloom; While in Darkness There Is Light

• Kirby Gann (fiction), Our Napoleon in Rags

• Robin Lippincott (fiction), In the Meantime

• Debra Kang Dean (poetry), author of Precipitates

• Roy Hoffman (nonfiction), Alabama Afternoons: Profiles and Conversations

• Julie Brickman (fiction), What Birds Can Only Whisper

• Charlie Schulman (playwriting, screenwriting), The Fartiste

5:15-6:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 15 (ELC Lectorium)

• Philip F. Deaver (fiction), Silent Retreats

• Molly Peacock (poetry, nonfiction) The Second Blush; The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life’s Work at 72

• Rachel Harper (fiction), Brass Ankle Blues

• Sam Zalutsky (screenwriting), You Belong to Me

• Eleanor Morse (fiction), An Unexpected Forest

• Luke Wallin (nonfiction), The Everything Guide to Publishing Children’s Books

• Kathleen Driskell (poetry), Seed Across Snow

6:00-7:00 p.m. Friday, November 18, Featured Author (Brown Hotel, Gallery, 16^th floor)

• Gregory Orr, author of The Caged Owl: New and Selected Poems and The Blessing: A Memoir

Book signing to follow. Books provided by Carmichael’s Bookstore.

The reading schedule may change without notice. Check the website for updated information: www.spalding.edu/mfa. For more information, call 502-873-4400 or 800-896-8941, ext. 4400 or email mfa@spalding.edu.

Tags: Faculty and Staff //