Montclair State University

Live Literature!
Guest and Faculty Readings at Montclair State University
Spring 2009
compiled by Maria Giura, First-Year Writing Program

Anthony Kellman  (guest)
Limestone: an Epic Poem of Barbados
 Thursday, March 5 University Hall 1070 5:30 p.m.

Anthony Kellman, is a Barbados born poet and novelist and full professor of Creative
Writing at Augusta State University who will read from his fourth book of poetry, Limestone: an Epic Poem of Barbados. Limestone narrates countless stories and creates many different voices to construct a vision of Barbados that encompasses suffering and achievement, heroic struggle and the setbacks born of self interest and timorous compromise. Like the great epics of Homer and Virgil it connects images of the past to contemporary dilemmas. Above all, Limestone is never other than a poem: a vast treasure house of images, sounds and rhythms that move, entertain and absorb the reader in its world. Professor Kellman’s reading promises to be an entertaining mix of the spoken word, music and performance that will appeal to students, staff and faculty from across a wide range of disciplines. Sponsored by the English Department’s Visiting Writers Committee—VWC.

Telling Stories to Change the World,
An Interactive Discussion with Kayhan Irani (guest)  
Monday, March 9 Cohen Lounge, Dickson Hall 1 pm - 2:15 pm

Kayhan Irani is a community arts practitioner and co-editor of Telling Stories to Change the World:  Global Voices on the Power of Narrative to Build Community and Make Social Justice Claims (2008).  Ms. Irani will share her insights on the transformative power of stories to generate hope and empowerment globally.  She will guide us into seeing how we can become storytellers for social change.  This event is free, though donations are gratefully accepted. This is a fundraising event for the Hoshyar Foundation, a not-for-profit organization making education a reality for girls in Pakistan.  For more information, please contact http://chss.montclair.edu/ws. Cosponsored by  The Women's and Gender Studies Program, Agenda for Education in a Democracy, the Global Education Center, the President's Commission on Affirmative Action and Diversity, and theEnglish Department’s VWC.

Composition UnBound Readers’ Series
The following three dates feature writers from our First Year Writing and English Faculty: Tuesday, March 10, Wed., April 1 and Monday April 13.

Tuesday, March 10, University Hall Courtyard 2:30 pm

Don Hymans  
Don Hymans is a graduate of Lafayette College and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop where he was a Teaching-Writing-Fellow in creative writing.  His writing has appeared in numerous publications including American Literary Review, The Best American Poetry 1997, Black Warrior Review, The Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, Northeast Corridor, The Wittenberg Review, and Verse.  His first collection of poetry has been a finalist in numerous first book awards including The Associated Writing Programs Award Series, the National Poetry Series, and the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award.  He is the recipient of numerous awards including an Academy of American Poets Prize and a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship in literature. 

Tracey Lander-Garrett  
Tracey Lander-Garrett received her MFA in Poetry from Brooklyn College and her BA in Creative Writing from the University of Connecticut. She writes both poetry and prose—mainly personal narratives—about her dysfunctional family, romantic relationships, and other topics.  She also writes nonsense poetry (think Lewis Carroll meets Theodore Roethke), and wrote a vampire sestina series (three connected sestinas with a "super envoi").  She has also written an erotic retelling of the Snow White story inspired by Angela Carter. She has published poems and other writing in such publications as Brooklyn Review, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Metropolitan Universities, and SMOOTH Magazine.

Dan Levine
Daniel Levine lives in Montclair, where he is attempting to finish his novel when he is not attending to the reasonable demands of his students.  He received MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Florida and has found himself somewhat unexpectedly back in the state where he was born and went to high school.  In his free time he enjoys taking strolls in the South Mountain Reservation, replying heatedly to mass departmental emails, and dining out in restaurants, of which, incidentally, Fascino in Montclair is his local favorite, when the modest budget of an adjunct permits him.

Wed., April 1, University Hall Courtyard 1:00 pm

Tom Benediktsson
Tom Benediktsson is a senior member of the English department faculty.  He teaches American literature and creative writing, and he has served as department chair and for some years as director of the University Honors Program.  He has a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and is the author of a book on the San Francisco poet George Sterling, as well as articles on various topics in contemporary literature and film.  Over the years his poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines and small presses, most recently in Borderlands, Cortland Review, and New Delta Review.

Paul Caruso 
Paul Caruso is pleased to return  to MSU this semester teaching College Writing and Writing: Drama.  Paul’s specializations include Creative Writing and Educational Theatre and Dramatic Writing.  He is affiliated with several community organizations, including NJ School of Dramatic Arts (staff instructor, writer, director), and 12 Miles West Theatre (company member since 1998, new play reading series facilitator, writer, director) and PaperMill Playhouse (Teaching Artist - "Creative Dramatics" 2007-08 Season; "Storytime Theatre" 2008-09 Season)  and hopes to link the community  with MSU in new and exciting ways.

Sasha Troyan
Sasha Troyanwas born in America but raised and educated in Paris, France. She earned a Masters from NYU with a Concentration in Creative Writing. In addition to teaching at MSU, she has taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Queens College, Long Island University and New York School of Technology.” Her novels have been published to critical acclaim. Her first novel, Angels in the Morning, was a Book Sense selection and her second novel, The Forgotten Island was recommended by Elle: “Like her mesmerizing first novel, Angels in the Morning, The Forgotten Island pulses with dark undercurrents of familial love and betrayal, sisterly mysteries and rites, louche neighbors and secretive houseguests—here assembled in plenary summer on a lush island off the Italian coast, where the sisters’ youthful games set the stage for potent dangers and unspeakable deeds.”

Monday April 13 University Hall Courtyard  4 pm

Dan Bronson
Daniel Bronson tries to sneak in writing between teaching and duties as department chair. A former magazine editor, he has seen his writing meander from journalism through short fiction, plays and more recently poetry. He has published or seen performances in all those areas.

Megan Dreisbach
Megan Dreisbach is a full-time instructor in the first-year writing program at MSU. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University and is currently pursuing a second MA in Creative NonFiction at Bennington College. She has studied in France and was a freelance writer for Glamour Magazine.

Tony Mancus
Tony Mancusreceived his MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona, where he first started teaching composition. He currently teaches writing at MSU and Hunter College and has taught at Queensborough Community College and the University of Scranton. He is co-founder of Flying Guillotine Press, a small press that focuses on producing quality handmade books. His poetry has appeared in a number of journals and he is currently working on a book length manuscript.

 
Wednesday, April 15 University Hall Courtyard  Time: TBA
Maria Mazziotti Gillan (guest)
Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s newest book of poetry, All That Lies Between Us (2007,) is the winner of the American Book Award. She is the Founder and the Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. She is also a Professor and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Binghamton University-State University of New York .She has published eight books of poetry, including The Weather of Old Seasons(Cross-Cultural Communications, 1988), Where I Come From(1995) and Things My Mother Told Me, and Italian Women in Black Dresses(Guernica,2002). She is co-editor with her daughter Jennifer of three anthologies published by Penguin/Putnam. She also has co-edited with her daughter Jennifer Gillan and Edvige Giunta, Italian American Writers on New Jersey (Rutgers University Press).She is the editor of the award-winning Paterson Literary Review.

February 2009