Thursday, February 18: 
A Reading with Poets Rick Barot and Brian Teare

Rick Barot is the author of two books of poems, Want (Sarabande, 2008), and The Darker Fall (Sarabande, 2002). He regularly publishes his work in such journals as American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and Poetry. The recipient of an NEA fellowship and a finalist for this past year's Lambda Literary Awards, he lives in Tacoma, Washington, and teaches both in the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and at Pacific Lutheran University.

Brian Teare is the author of three books of poems: Pleasure (Ahsahta, 2010); Sight Map (University of California Press, 2009); and The Room Where I Was Born (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), which won the 2004 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. The recipient of an NEA fellowship, he has published poetry and criticism in such journals as American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Ploughshares, Seneca Review, Verse and VOLT. He lives in California, where he teaches at the University of San Francisco and makes books by hand for his micropress, Albion Books.

Thursday, February 25: 
A Reading with Poets Jason Koo, Simone Muench, and Mathias Svalina

Jason Koo is the author of the poetry collection Man on Extremely Small Island (C&R Press, 2009), winner of the 2008 De Novo Poetry Prize. His poems and prose have appeared in such journals as Bellingham Review, Gulf Coast, North American Review, Verse, and The Yale Review. He is the recipient of a 2009 fellowship in creative writing from the NEA. Koo, a native Clevelander, currently resides in New York City, where he teaches at NYU and Lehman College, and serves as Poetry Editor of Low Rent.

Simone Muench is the author of Orange Crush (Sarabande, 2010), Lampblack & Ash (Sarabande, 2005), and The Air Lost in Breathing (Helicon Nine, 2000). She is Director of the Writing Program at Lewis University, where she teaches creative writing and film studies. Currently, she serves on the advisory board for Switchback Books, and is an editor for Sharkforum. She lives in Chicago.

Mathias Svalina is the author of Destruction Myth (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2009), as well as four chapbooks and four chapbook-length collaborations. His work has appeared in such journals as Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, and jubilat. He is the co-editor of Octopus Magazine and the press Octopus Books. He holds an M.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. Born in Chicago, he now lives and teaches in Denver.

Thursday, March 4: 
A Reading with Fiction Writer Michael Martone*

Michael Martone’s most recent books are Racing in Place: Collages, Fragments, Postcards, Ruins, a collection of essays; Double-wide, his collected early stories; Michael Martone, a memoir in contributor’s notes; and Unconventions: Writing on Writing.Martone is also the author of five books of short fiction.His stories and essays have frequently appeared in such magazines as Esquire, Harper’s, and The Iowa Review, and have been anthologized in editions of the Best American Essays, Best American Stories, and Pushcart Prize anthologies. He has won two fellowships from the NEA and a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation. Martone has been a faculty member of the M.F.A. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College since 1988, and is a Professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Alabama, where he has taught since 1996.
(*)This reading is presented in cooperation with the NEOMFA, The Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program

Tuesday, March 9:
A Reading with Authors Dan Chaon and Monica Ferrell

Dan Chaon is the author, most recently, of the nationally best selling novel Await Your Reply, which was named one of  the ten best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Publisher’s Weekly, Janet Maslin of the New York Times, and Laura Miller of salon.com, as well as being named among the year’s best fiction by such newspapers as The Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post. He is also the author of Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award and the novel You Remind Me of Me. His fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing and Literature.

Monica Ferrell is the author or a novel, The Answer Is Always Yes (Dial Press, 2008), which was named a Borders Original Voices Selection and one of Booklist’s Top Ten Debut Novels of 2008. Her poetry collection, Beasts for the Chase (Sarabande, 2008), won the Kathryn Morton Prize in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Fence, The New York Review of Books, Paris Review, and Tin House. A former “Discovery”/The Nation prize winner and Wallace Stegner Fellow, she teaches in the creative writing program at Purchase College and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Thursday, April 1: 
A Reading with Poets Sean Thomas Dougherty and Jeffrey McDaniel

Sean Thomas Dougherty is the author of eleven books, including the poetry collections Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line (BOA Editions, 2010) and Broken Hallelujahs (BOA Editions 2007), as well as the novella The Blue City (Marick Press, 2008). His awards include a Fulbright Lectureship in Macedonia, and two Pennsylvania Council for the Arts fellowships in poetry. Known for his electrifying performances, he recently spent three years traveling and performing. A long-time resident of Erie, PA, he now lives in Cleveland and teaches rhetoric at Case Western Reserve University.

Jeffrey McDaniel is the author of four books of poetry, including, most recently, The Endarkenment. His poems have been published in many anthologies, including Best American Poetry and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.Although McDaniel has not performed in a poetry slam in over a decade, he has made spoken word appearances at Lollapalooza and the Moscow Writers' Union, as well as numerous poetry slams across the United States in the early-to-mid ‘90s. A recipient of an NEA fellowship among other honors, he has taught creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College since 2001.

Thursday, April 22: 
A Reading with Poets Elyse Fenton and D. A. Powell

Elyse Fenton is the author of Clamor (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2010), selected by D.A. Powell as winner of the 2009 Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Prize. Winner of the 2008 Pablo Neruda Award from Nimrod International Literary Journal, her poetry and nonfiction have also appeared in such journals as Bat City Review, The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review,and The New York Times. She received her M.F.A. from the University of Oregon and divides her time unevenly between Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon.

D. A. Powell is the author of the poetry collection Chronic (Graywolf, 2009). His three previous collections are Tea (Wesleyan, 1998); Lunch (Wesleyan, 2000); and Cocktails (Graywolf, 2004), which was a National Book Critics’ Circle Award finalist, as well as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. Powell’s other honors include an NEA Fellowship and the Lyric Poetry Award from the Poetry Society of America. He lives in the Bay Area, and teaches at the University of San Francisco.

Thursday, April 29: 
A Reading with Authors Jesse Lee Kercheval and Josip Novakovich

Jesse Lee Kercheval is the author of Cinema Muto (Southern Illinois UP, 2009), as well as nine other books of fiction, poetry and nonfiction including The Alice Stories (University of Nebraska Press, 2007), which won the Prairie Schooner Fiction Book Prize, and Dog Angel (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004). Her novella, Brazil (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2010), was selected as a winner of the Ruthanne Wiley Memorial Novella Contest by Josip Novakovich. She lives in Madison, and is the Sally Mead Hands Bascom Professor of English and the Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin.

Josip Novakovich has published a novel, April Fool’s Day (Harper Perennial, 2006); and three story collections, most recently, Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust (Harper Perennial, 2005); two collections of narrative essays, and a widely used book on craft, Fiction Writer’s Workshop. His work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and O. Henry Prize Stories. He has received the Whiting Writer’s Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, and two NEA Fellowships. He now teaches in the writing program at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.