Events/Visiting Writers

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English Department Visiting Scholar Series Fall 2021

Visiting Writer Tracy Ross

Thursday, September 9, 7:00 P.M.

Visiting Writer Moheb Soliman

Thursday, September 23, 6:30 P.M. (at Peter White Library, co-sponsored by the NMU English Department)

Visiting Writer Ira Sukrungruang

Thursday, October 7, 7:00 P.M

Peninsula Room V @ The Northern Center

Northern Michigan University Campus

Award-winning writer Ira Sukrungruang was born in Chicago to Thai immigrants. He is the recipient of the 2015 American Book Award for Southside Buddhist: Essays, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature, an Arts and Letters Fellowship, and the Anita Claire Scharf Award in Poetry. He is the author of four nonfiction books: This Jade World (2021), Buddha’s Dog & Other Meditations (2018), Southside Buddhist (2014) and Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy (2010), the short story collection The Melting Season (2016), and the poetry collection In Thailand It Is Night (2013). His work has appeared in many literary journals, including The Rumpus, American Poetry Review, The Sun, and Creative Nonfiction. He is the president of Sweet: A Literary Confection, a literary nonprofit organization, and is the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College.

Reading followed by Q&A. Free and open to the public.

This event is sponsored by the Department of English and the Diversity Common Reader Program (DCRP). 

Visiting Scholar Dr. Kyle Bladow

Tuesday, October 12, 7:00 P.M.

Dr. Kyle Bladow studies the ways literature informs our connections to land and water and our interactions with the more-than-human world. His research encompasses environmental justice, queer ecology, sustainable foodways, and contemporary American literature. Dr. Bladow is also a graduate of NMU's BA and MA programs in English; the Department English is thrilled to welcome him back as our inaugural speaker for a new Visiting Scholar series. His lecture on “Environmental Justice in Louise Erdrich’s Speculative Fiction” promises to address some of the most pressing issues of our time in relation to a giant of American letters. Please join us!

Visiting Writer Erika T. Wurth 

Thursday, November 4th, 7 p.m.

NMU Northern Center: Peninsula 1

Erika T. Wurth’s publications include two novels, Crazy Horse’s Girlfriend and You Who Enter Here, two collections of poetry and a collection of short stories. A writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, she teaches creative writing at Western Illinois University and has been a guest writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals including Boulevard, The Writer’s Chronicle, Waxwing and The Kenyon Review. She is a Kenyon Review Writers Workshop Scholar, attended the Tin House Summer Workshop, and has been chosen as a narrative artist for the Meow Wolf Denver installation. She is Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee and was raised outside of Denver.

Reading followed by Q&A. Free and open to the public.

Two Book Two Communities Events Flyer Fall 2021