Orange Alert

Fall 2011 Raymond Carver Reading Series spotlights Dana Spiotta

Creative Writing faculty member will read from her critically acclaimed Stone Arabia

Sept. 16, 2011, by Judy Holmes

Dana Spiotta's latest book, Stone Arabia
Dana Spiotta's latest book, Stone Arabia
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 Huntington Beard Crouse (HBC) Gifford Auditorium 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.

Author 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.
Dana Spiotta
Dana Spiotta
Fall 2011 Series Schedule
The Series will continue with the following authors. All readings begin at 5:30 p.m. in HBC Gifford Auditorium. Question and Answer sessions are from 3:45 to 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), 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 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).

Media Contact

Judy Holmes