Faith Shearin, whose poems are featured regularly on Garrison Keillor’s radio program “The Writer’s Almanac,” and Mark Brazaitis, a WVU professor and the author of “The Incurables,” will give a reading of their works Wednesday, September 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Robinson Reading Room in WVU’s Downtown Library. The reading is free and open to the public.
A professor of English and the director of the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop, Brazaitis is the author of six books of fiction, including “The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala,” winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, “Julia & Rodrigo,” winner of the 2012 Gival Press Novel Award, and “Truth Poker: Stories,” winner of the 2014 Autumn House Press Fiction Competition.
Brazaitis’ book “The Incurables” won the 2012 Richard Sullivan Prize and the 2013 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Prose and was featured on the Diane Rehm Show.
Shearin’s books of poems include “The Owl Question,” winner of May Swenson Award, “The Empty House,” “Moving the Piano,” and “Telling the Bees.” She is the recipient of awards from the Fine Arts Work Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.
Her recent work appears in “Poetry East,” “The Sun,” and “Alaska Quarterly Review.” Her poems can also be found in “The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry” and in Garrison Keillor’s “Good Poems, American Places.” Shearin lives with her husband and daughter in a cabin on top of a mountain in West Virginia.
“It’s always a pleasure to hear one of our faculty read,” said Mary Ann Samyn, English professor and coordinator of the Creative Writing Program, “This is especially the case with Mark, who has won so many honors for his recent books. We’re happy, too, to welcome Faith back to WVU. She’s a lovely poet and a past guest instructor at the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop. This reading promises to be a terrific kick-off to the new semester.”
-WVU-
as/08/21/2015
CONTACT: Mark Brazaitis, Professor of English, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, West Virginia University, 304-293-9707, Mark.Brazaitis@mail.wvu.edu
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