Columbia College Chicago Launches New Reading Series with Award-Winning Poets and Writers

Bonnie Jo Campbell by John Campbell
Department of Creative Writing Fall 2015 Reading Series

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Cara Birch
312.369.8695
cbirch@colum.edu

CHICAGO (Oct. 2, 2015) – Columbia College Chicago’s Department of Creative Writing is launching a new Reading Series that seeks to bring writers from multiple disciplines and traditions into the same performance space to discover, showcase and celebrate the art and act of writing. The Fall 2015 lineup includes award-winning and notable writers Bonnie Jo Campbell, Nina Revoyr, Joe Meno, John Gallaher, Nickole Brown, Aleksandar Hemon, Aviya Kushner, Joshua Clover, T Clutch Fleischmann, and Adam Johnson. Readings begin Oct. 5.

Drawing from Chicago’s robust literary legacy, the Reading Series presents prestigious writers who perform, engage and educate on a myriad of topics including craft, poetics, storytelling, and creative process. Each event will feature writers representing fiction, nonfiction and poetry, and a Q&A session at the reading’s close. Selected titles will be available for sale.

“We are proud to assemble this dynamic group of writers under a new cross-genre platform,” said Tony Trigilio, interim chair of the Department of Creative Writing. “This series aligns with the vitality and ambition of Chicago’s writing community and reflects Columbia College Chicago’s ongoing commitment to creative writing in and out of the classroom.”

Monday, Oct. 5

Bonnie Jo Campbell
5:30 p.m. Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.,
Second Floor Books available: Mothers, Tell Your Daughters; Once Upon a River

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of Once Upon a River, Q Road, and American Salvage, which was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She was a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow.

Thursday, Oct. 15

Nina Revoyr & Joe Meno
5:30 p.m. Art History Lecture Hall, 623 S. Wabash Ave., Rm. 203
Books available: Lost Canyon (Revoyr); Marvel and a Wonder (Meno)

Nina Revoyr is the author of five novels including Southland, a Los Angeles Times “Best Book” of the year, and The Age of Dreaming, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her most recent book, Lost Canyon, was published in August.

Joe Meno is the author of seven novels and two short story collections. His accolades include a Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Great Lakes Book Award. His latest novel is Marvel and a Wonder.

Tuesday, Oct. 20

John Gallaher
5:30 p.m. Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave., Second Floor
Book available: In a Landscape

John Gallaher is the author of five books of poetry, including The Little Book of Guesses, winner of the Ninth Annual Levis Reading Reading Prize in 2006. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Poetry, Boston Review, Chicago Review, and elsewhere.

Wednesday, Oct. 28 (POSTPONED)

Nickole Brown
5:30 p.m. Hokin Hall, 623 S. Wabash Ave., Rm. 109
Book available: Fanny Says

Nickole Brown’s most recent book of poems, Fanny Says, is forthcoming from BOA Editions. She is the editor of the Marie Alexander Series in Prose Poetry at White Pine Press and is on faculty at the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference.

Tuesday, Nov. 3

Aleksandar Hemon & Aviya Kushner
5:30 p.m. Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, Eighth Floor
Books available: The Making of the Zombie Wars; Love and Obstacles; The Book of My Lives (Hemon); The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible (Kushner)

Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, and most recently, The Making of Zombie Wars. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation and currently lives in Chicago. He is the Department of Creative Writing’s first Distinguished Writer-in-Residence.

Aviya Kushner is the author of The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible. Her writing has appeared in the The Gettysburg Review, Partisan Review, The Wilson Quarterly, and Zoetrope: All-Story. She is an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago.

Tuesday, Nov. 11

Joshua Clover & T Clutch Fleischmann
5:30 p.m. 618 S. Michigan Ave., Second Floor
Books on sale: Red Epic (Clover); Syzegy (Fleischmann)

Joshua Clover is the author of three books of poetry, including Red Epic, and two critical texts. He has received multiple honors including the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. His book Riot.Strike.Riot: the New Era of Uprisings is due from Verso in 2016.

T Clutch Fleischmann is the author of Syzygy, Beauty. They are a nonfiction editor at DIAGRAM and a contributing editor at Essay Daily. They are a visiting writer in Columbia College Chicago’s Department of Creative Writing and teach at Stonecoast’s low-residency MFA program.

Thursday, Dec. 3

Adam Johnson
5:30 p.m. Hokin Hall, 623 S. Wabash Ave., Rm. 203
Books available: The Orphan Master’s Son; Fortune Smiles

Adam Johnson is the winner of a Whiting Writer’s Award and Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is the author of several books, including The Orphan Master’s Son, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize.

For more information, visit: www.colum.edu/readingseries

About Columbia College Chicago Reading Series

The Columbia College Chicago Reading Series is committed to curating critically engaged contemporary works that challenge traditional discourse and embraces culturally relevant, diverse voices. The college’s unique connection to the vibrant cultural and educational district in the South Loop also sets the stage for some of the most fascinating, inspiring and influential conversations on the literary arts.

About Columbia College Chicago

Columbia College Chicago is an urban institution that offers innovative degree programs in the visual, performing, media and communication arts for 9,000 students in more than 100 undergraduate and graduate programs. An arts and media college committed to a rigorous liberal arts curriculum, Columbia is dedicated to opportunity and excellence in higher education. For further information, visit www.colum.edu.

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