Ohio University Libraries News and Events

"Social Climbers" by Mark Kleinholz courtesy of Kennedy Museum of Art

This week the Spring Literary Festival will celebrate 25 years by hosting Rosellen Brown, Rita Dove, Debra Marquart, Padgett Powell and Tobias Wolff as visiting guests artists.  All events take place at Baker Center Theatre in Baker Center.  Check the Event Schedule for times and days.

Rosellen Brown

She has been the recipient of an award in literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, twice from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was selected one of Ms. Magazine’s 12 “Women of the Year” in 1984. Civil Wars won the Janet Kafka Prize for the best novel by an American woman in 1984.

Rita Dove

Born in Akron, Ohio and first African American and youngest Poet Laureate in United States,  Ohioana Authors Online provides some wonderful information on her background and achievements.  In her latest book, Sonata Mulattica (W.W. Norton, 2009), she re-imagines the life of 19th-century violinist George Polgreen Bridgetower, son of a white European mother and an “African prince”, child prodigy and for a short time friend of Ludwig van Beethoven, whose Kreutzer Sonata was originally composed for and premiered by Bridgetower in Vienna.

Debra Marquart

In the seventies and eighties, Marquart was a touring road musician with rock and heavy metal bands. Her collection of short stories, The Hunger Bone: Rock & Roll Stories draws from her experiences as a female road musician. Marquart continues to perform with a jazz-poetry rhythm & blues project, The Bone People, with whom she has released two CDs: Orange Parade (acoustic rock), and A Regular Dervish (jazz-poetry).

Padgett Powell

Padgett Powell has published five novels-–Edisto, A Woman Named Drown (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1984 and 1987), Edisto Revisited (Henry Holt, 1996), Mrs. Hollingsworth’s Men (Houghton Mifflin, 2000), The Interrogative Mood (Ecco, 2009).  Edisto made TIME’s Best-of-Year Fiction list and was a nominee for the National Book Award; it has been published in many countries and languages.

Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff’s books include the memoirs This Boy’s Life and In Pharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War; the short novel The Barracks Thief; the novel Old School, and four collections of short stories, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, Back in the World, The Night in Question, and, most recently, Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories.  His work is translated widely and has received numerous awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award.

A special treat this year is a compilation of writings edited by Kevin Haworth and Dinty Moore, titled Lit From Within a retrospective on 25 years of the Lit Fest.    The book …”offers creative writers a window into the minds of some of America’s most celebrated contemporary authors. Witty, direct, and thought-provoking, these essays offer something to creative writers of all backgrounds and experience. With contributions from fiction writers, poets, and nonfiction writers, this is a collection of unusual breadth and quality.” (Publisher)

This entry was posted on Monday, May 2nd, 2011 at 10:40 am and is filed under General, Guest Author, New Books, People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.