The Last Predicta, Chad Davidson

Chad Davidson is the author of The Last Predicta (2008) and Consolation Miracle (2003), both from Southern Illinois University Press. He also co-authored (with Gregory Fraser) Writing Poetry: Creative and Critical Approaches (Palgrave, 2009). He teaches literature and creative writing at the University of West Georgia near Atlanta.

Ovenman, Jeff Parker

Jeff Parker is the author of the novel Ovenman. His short fiction has appeared in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Ploughshares, Indiana Review, Waccamaw, and elsewhere. Dzanc Books will publish his short story collection False Cognate in 2010. He co-edited the anthologies Rasskazy: New Fiction From A New Russia and Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States. He is currently working on a nonfiction book that is part Fear and Loathing on the Trans-Siberian Railroad and part reportage on contemporary Russia. He is the Acting Director of the MA in the Field of Creative Writing at the University of Toronto.

The Good Thief, Hannah Tinti

Hannah Tinti grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, and is co-founder and editor-in-chief of One Story magazine. Her short story collection, Animal Crackers , has sold in sixteen countries and was a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway award. Her first novel, The Good Thief , is a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, recipient of the American Library Association’s Alex Award, and winner of the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize. Tinti also recently won the 2009 PEN/Nora Magid award for her editorial work at One Story .

Notes from No Mans Land, Eula Bliss

Eula Bliss is the author of The Balloonists and Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays, winner of the 2008 Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. She teaches nonfiction writing at Northwestern University and is co-editor of Essay Press, a small press dedicated to innovative nonfiction. Bliss holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa and has received a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award and a Pushcart Prize. Her essays have recently appeared in The Best Creative Nonfiction and the Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Nonfiction as well as in The Believer, Ninth Letter, Iowa Review, and Harper’s.

A Fiction Reading, Randall Kenan

Randall Kenan is the author of a novel, A Visitation of Spirits; two works of non-fiction, Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century and The Fire This Time; a young adult biography of James Baldwin; and a collection of stories, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Among his awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the John Dos Passos Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Prix de Rome. He is associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina.

A Poetry Reading, Patrick Phillips

Patrick Phillips' first book, Chattahoochee, received the 2005 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and his second collection, Boy, was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2008. His poems have appeared in many magazines, including Poetry, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review, and his translations of the Danish poet Henrik Nordbrandt received the Sjoberg Translation Prize. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches writing and literature at Drew University.

A Reading, Rebecca Barry

Rebecca Barry is an author living in upstate New York. Her first book, Later, at the Bar, was a New York Times Editor's Choice, a New York Times Notable Book and short-listed for The Story Prize. Her nonfiction has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Seventeen, Details, and The Best American Travel Writing 2003. Her fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, One Story, Tin House, Ecotone, The Mid-American Review, and Best New American Voices 2005. She is currently working on a novel and writing a blog called The Main Street Diaries. www.mainstreetdiaries.blogspot.com

The Frog King, Adam Davies

Adam Davies was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of three novels: The Frog King, soon to be a major motion picture with a script by Bret Easton Ellis; Goodbye Lemon; and Mine All Mine, which was purchased for film with the author to write the screenplay. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, and his books are in print around the world in such places as Europe, Thailand, Russia, and Australia. He lives in Savannah, Georgia, and is a professor at the Savannah College of Art & Design.

A Faculty Showcase Reading, Joe Oestreich

Joe Oestreich'sessays have appeared in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Ninth Letter, Fourth Genre, and many other magazines and journals. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, honored by The Atlantic Monthly, and noted in The Best American Essays and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He teaches creative writing and is the nonfiction editor of Waccamaw at Coastal Carolina University.

Midnight Voices, Deborah Ager

Deborah Ager'sfirst book, Midnight Voices, will be published in March 2009 by Cherry Grove Collections. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2006, The Georgia Review, New Letters, and elsewhere. She has been awarded fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Jenny McKean Moore workshop, and she was a Tennessee Williams scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She is the editor and publisher of the magazine 32 Poems.

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.