UIS Creative Writing and Publishing Series brings nationally recognized writers and poets to Springfield

The University of Illinois Springfield Creative Writing and Publishing Series will bring several emerging and established fiction writers and poets of national reputation to Springfield in October. All events are free and open to the public.

“We have a special focus on writers with an interest in place,” said Meagan Cass, UIS assistant professor of English. “Visiting writers give readings from their work, discuss the writing (and publishing) life, and visit UIS classes.”

The first public reading by Matt Rasmussen will take place on Thursday, October 3 at 7 p.m. in the Lincoln Residence Hall Great Room at UIS. His poetry collection, Black Aperture, was selected by Jane Hirshfield as the winner of the 2012 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets and was published by Louisiana State University Press in May 2013. Rasmussen is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Bush Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, The Corporation of Yaddo, the Loft Literary Center, the Jerome Foundation, Intermedia Arts, the Anderson Center in Red Wing, Minnesota, and the McKnight Foundation.

Katherine Boo, a staff writer at The New Yorker and a former reporter and editor for The Washington Post will headline the second public event on Monday, October 7 at 7 p.m. in UIS Sangamon Auditorium. Over the years, her reporting from disadvantaged communities has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur “Genius” grant, and a National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. For the last decade, she has divided her time between the United States and India. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, her first book, won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2012. The appearance is in collaboration with UIS Brookens Library. Tickets for this event are free, but should be required in advance from the Sangamon Auditorium Box Office at 217/206-6160.

The final October event will feature husband and wife Adam Prince and Charlotte Pence on Thursday, Oct. 24 at 6:30 p.m. in the Lincoln Residence Hall Great Room at UIS. Adam Prince’s award-winning fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, and Narrative Magazine, among others publications. His debut short story collection The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men was published with Black Lawrence Press in 2012. The recipient of the Tickner Fellowship at the Gilman School in Baltimore, he is currently at work on a novel about identity and surveillance that takes place in Jakarta, Indonesia. Charlotte Pence’s full-length poetry collection, Spike, will be released by Black Lawrence Press in 2014. She is also the author of two award-winning poetry chapbooks, The Branches, the Axe, the Missing (Black Lawrence Press, 2012) and Weaves a Clear Night (Flying Trout Press, 2011). Pence also edited The Poetics of American Song Lyrics (University Press of Mississippi, 2012) that explores the similarities and differences between poetry and songs. She is a professor at Eastern Illinois University.

For more information about the UIS Creative Writing and Publishing Series, contact Meagan Cass at 217/206-8358 or mcass3@uis.edu.