Rutgers–Camden’s MFA in Creative Writing Program Continues its Visiting Authors Series

CAMDEN – Is 2011 the year you write your novel? Let Rutgers–Camden be your muse, with a series of inspiring readings and workshops by top poets, writers, and publishers.

Thanks to funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rutgers–Camden master of fine arts (MFA) program will continue its special series, which is free and open to the public. The readings will take place at 7 p.m. in the Stedman Gallery, located in the Fine Arts Building on Third Street, between Cooper Street and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge on the Rutgers–Camden Campus.  A Q&A session and reception will follow each reading. For inquiries on the 3:30 to 5 p.m. workshops, email mfa@camden.rutgers.edu. Space for the workshops is limited.

For more information, call (856) 225-6021; for directions to Rutgers–Camden, visit camden.rutgers.edu. Learn more about the Rutgers–Camden MFA program at mfa.camden.rutgers.edu.

Wednesday, Jan. 26
Novelist Victor LaValle will read and lead the workshop.

The author of three books, Slapboxing with Jesus: Stories (Knopf Doubleday, 1999), The Ecstatic (Crown, 2002), and Big Machine (Random House, 2010), LaValle has also published work in Nerve, Essence, and GQ. LaValle has received numerous awards, including the Breadloaf Writer’s Fellowship, PEN/Open Book Beyond Margins Award, and Whiting Writer’s Award, and was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award and PEN/Faulkner Award.

 

Wednesday, Feb. 23
Poet Sarah Gambito and novelist Monica Ferrell will read and lead the workshop.

Gambito has written two collections of poems: Matadora (Alice James, 2004) and Delivered (Persea, 2009). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Iowa Review, The Antioch Review, Fence, and The New Republic, among others. She cofounded Kundiman, a nonprofit that promotes Asian-American poetry.

Ferrell is the author of the novel The Answer is Always Yes (Random House, 2008) and a collection of poems, Beasts for the Chase (Sarabande Books, 2008), selected for the Kathryn A Morton Poetry Prize. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, Ferrell has published poems in The Paris Review, Tin House, Fence, and other magazines and anthologies.

 

Wednesday, March 30
Publishers Kathy Pories, Ben Schrank, and Julie Barer will present; Pories will lead the workshop.

Pories earned her B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in English from the University of North Carolina, where she also taught, before teaching at Elon University. In 1995, she joined Algonquin books, where she now serves as Senior Editor. Her books include Hillary Jordan’s bestseller Mudbound (Algonquin Books, 2008) and the New Stories from the South series.

Ben Schrank is president and publisher of Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group. He has written two novels for adults, Miracle Man (HarperCollins, 1999) and Consent (Random House, 2002), as well as the Insiders series for young adults. He has also written for Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Seventeen, where he penned the fictional column “Ben’s Life.”

After working for six years at the New York literary agency Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, Julie Barer started her own agency, Barer Literary. She now represents a wide range of fiction writers who publish across the literary spectrum. Her nonfiction clients specialize in biography, memoir, history, and popular culture.

 

Wednesday, April 13
Novelists Owen King and Veronica Chambers will read; Owen King will lead the workshop.

Owen King is the author of We’re All in This Together: A Novella and Stories (Bloomsbury, 2005) and co-editor of the fiction anthology Who Can Save Us Now? (Simon & Schuster, 2008). His writing has appeared in the Bellingham Review, The Boston Globe, One Story, Paste Magazine, and Subtropics, among other publications.

Veronica Chambers is the author of several books, including Kickboxing Geishas (Simon & Schuster, 2010), When Did You Stop Loving Me (Doubleday, 2004), Having It All? (Broadway, 2004), and Mama’s Girl (Riverhead, 1997). Her writing has appeared in many magazines, including Glamour, Vogue, Esquire, New York Times Magazine, and O, The Oprah Magazine.  

 

Media Contact: Cathy K. Donovan
(856) 225-6627
E-mail: catkarm@camden.rutgers.edu