Soaring with Fidel, David Gessner

David Gessner is the author of five critically acclaimed books and a winner of the 2005 Pushcart Prize. His third book, Return of the Osprey, was chosen by the Boston Globe and the Book-of-the-Month club as one of the top ten nonfiction books of the year in 2001. His most recent book is Soaring with Fidel. His essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Orion, The Georgia Review, and American Scholar. Gessner teaches at UNC Wilmington and edits the journal Ecotone.

Backward Days, Stuart Dischell

Stuart Dischell is the author of Good Hope Road, a 1991 National Poetry Series Selection (Viking, 1993), Evenings & Avenues (Penguin, 1996), Dig Safe (Penguin, 2003), and Backwards Days (Penguin, 2007). His poems have been widely published in journals such as The New Republic, Ploughshares, Slate, and The Kenyon Review. A recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Dischell teaches in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at UNC Greensboro.

Atlas, Katrina Vandenberg

Katrina Vandenberg’s first book Atlas (Milkweed Editions) was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, and her poetry has appeared in The American Scholar, The Iowa Review, Poetry Daily, and other venues. She has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Fulbright and McKnight foundations. She is currently a Bush Artist Fellow in Literature and a volunteer at the Center for Victims of Torture in the Twin Cities.
This reading is made possible by support from The Nancy Arthur Smith Distinguished Visitors in Residence Series.

Rabbit Punches, Jason Ockert [CCU Faculty Showcase Reading]

Jason Ockert has won several national fiction awards and is the author of the short story collection Rabbit Punches. His stories have appeared in many journals, including The Oxford American, Black Warrior Review, Indiana Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Mid-American Review, and McSweeney’s. His work is included in the 2007 anthologies New Stories from the South and Best American Mystery Stories. He teaches in the English Department of Coastal Carolina University.

Quantum Lyrics, A. Van Jordan

A. Van Jordan is the author of Rise (Tia Chucha Press, 2001), which won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award, M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A (Norton, 2004), which was awarded an Anisfield-Wolf Award and listed as one the Best Books of 2005 by The London Times (TLS), and most recently Quantum Lyrics (Norton, 2007). Jordan was also awarded a Whiting Writers Award in 2005 and a Pushcart Prize in 2006. Recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007, Jordan teaches in the MFA program at the University of Texas.

Here, Bullet, Brian Turner

Brian Turner is a soldier-poet whose debut book of poems, Here, Bullet, won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award and was a New York Times “Editor’s Choice” selection. Turner served seven years in the US Army, including one year as an infantry team leader in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 with the 10th Mountain Division. Turner’s poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, The Georgia Review, and other journals. A graduate of the MFA program at the University of Oregon, Turner is the recipient of the 2007 Poets Prize.

Creatures of Habit, Jill McCorkle

Jill McCorkle is the author of five novels: The Cheer Leader, July 7th, Tending to Virginia, Ferris Beach and Carolina Moon, and three story collections, most recently Creatures of Habit. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Best American Short Stories, and New Stories from the South, among other publications. The recipient of the New England Book Award, the John Dos Passos Prize, and the North Carolina Award for Literature, she has taught creative writing at UNC-Chapel Hill, Tufts, Harvard, Brandeis, and Bennington College. She is currently on faculty at NC State University.
This reading is made possible by support from The Nancy Arthur Smith Distinguished Visitors in Residence Series.

The Boatloads, Dan Albergotti [CCU Faculty Showcase Reading]

Dan Albergotti’s poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals. His chapbook, Charon’s Manifest, appeared in 2005, and his poem “Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale” won the 5th Annual Oneiros Press Poetry Broadside Contest. In 2007, Edward Hirsch selected Albergotti’s manuscript, The Boatloads, as the winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize from BOA Editions. A graduate of the MFA program at UNC Greensboro and former poetry editor of The Greensboro Review, Albergotti teaches literature and creative writing courses at Coastal Carolina University.