Visiting Writers Lecture Series

John Murillo is the author of the poetry collection, Up Jump the Boogie. A graduate of New York University's MFA program in creative writing, he has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the New York Times, and the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing.

Carol Moldaw's most recent book is So Late, So Soon: New and Selected (Etruscan Press, 2010).

Jon Raymond is the author of The Half-Life, A Novel, and Livability, a collection of short stories named as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick for Spring 2009.

Ross Gay's book, Against Which, was a finalist for Foreword Magazine's poetry book of the year. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Margie: The American Journal of Poetry, among other journals.

Gail Tsukiyama was born in San Francisco, California to a Chinese mother from Hong Kong and a Japanese father from Hawaii. She is the first author to receive the Asia Pacific Leadership Award from the Center of the Pacific Rim and the Ricci Institute.

Matthew Dickman’s first collection, All-American Poem, won the 2008 APR/Honnickman First Book Prize. Michael Dickman’s first collection is The End of the West (2009) from Copper Canyon Press.

Marc Acito’s comic novel How I Paid for College: A Novel of Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater won the 2005 Ken Kesey Award for the Novel and made the American Library Association’s Teens’ Top Ten list.

Dorianne Laux’s fourth collection of poems, Facts About the Moon (2005), was the recipient of the Oregon Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work has twice been included in Best American Poetry.

Matthew Dickman’s first collection of poems, All American Poem, won the 2008 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize in Poetry, selected by Tony Hoagland. His chapbook, Amigos, was published in 2007 by Q Ave Press.

Susan Straight's novels include I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots, Blacker than a Thousand Midnights, The Gettin Place, and Highwire Moon, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her essays have appeared in Harper's, Salon.com, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, the New York Times, and on NPR’s All Things Considered, as well as in the magazines Real Simple and Family Circle. Her short stories have appeared in McSweeney's and Zoetrope, among other publications. Her honors and awards include the California Book Prize, a Lannan Foundation Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and a Best American Short Story Award. Straight was born in Riverside and lives there with her three daughters.

Stephen Elliott is the author of six books including the story collection My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up and the novel Happy Baby.

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing, China, and came to the United States in 1996. She began writing in her late twenties, and has published stories and essays inthe New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, and Guardian First Book Prize, among many other awards. She received a Whiting Writers' Award and a residency fellowship from Lannan Foundation, and was recently chosen by Granta magazine as one of the best young American novelists. She lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and two sons, and teaches in the M.F.A. program at Mills College.

Ross Gay's book, Against Which, was a finalist for Foreword Magazine's poetry book of the year. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Margie: The American Journal of Poetry, among other journals.

Thursday, October 4, 2007 8 p.m. Psychology 105, Reed College, Portland, Oregon

With his razor-sharp wit and unsparing honesty, Bernard Cooper peels back layers of the familiar, exposing the surprising truths that shape our lives. Bernard Cooper has written two collections of memoirs, Maps to Anywhere and Truth Serum.

Tess Gallagher is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, screenplay writer, and translator. Her poetry collections include Dear Ghosts, Moon Crossing Bridge, and Amplitude: New and Selected Poems. In 1979 she began living with the short-story writer Raymond Carver, whom she married shortly before his death in 1988. In Ireland, she bought lambs to save them from the butcher and has begun weaving wall hangings from their fleece. She lives in Port Angeles, Washington.

Mary Szybist grew up in Pennsylvania and is a graduate the University of Virginia and of The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her book of poetry, Granted, won the 2002 Beatrice Hawley Award was a finalist for the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writing Award and the 2004 winner of the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award in Poetry. Mary currently teaches at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.

Nick Flynn’s memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir, and has been translated into 10 languages. He is also the author of two poetry collections, Some Ether and Blind Hube