News Release

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March 25, 2005

MFA Series Brings Poets, Fiction Writers To Boise In April

The Boise State University English Department’s Master of Fine Arts writing program will present three evenings of readings from poets and fiction writers in April. All events are free and open to the public.
 

Friday, April 8

Poet Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, author of “Nest,” will present a reading of her poetry at 7:30 p.m. at the Hemingway Center. Berssenbrugge has published several works, including “The Heat Bird,” “Empathy,” “Sphericity” and “Four Year Old Girl.” Her collaborations include artist books with Richard Tuttle and Kiki Smith, and theater works with Frank Chin, Blondell Cummings and Tan Dun. She has received two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and two American Book awards. She has been a contributing editor of “Conjunctions Magazine” since 1978, and has taught at Brown University and the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Friday, April 15

Poets Peter Gizzi, author of “Some Values of Landscape,” and Elizabeth Willis, author of “Weather and Turneresque,” will present readings of their poetry at 7:30 p.m. at the Hemingway Center. Gizzi has published several limited-edition chapbooks and three collections of poetry, including “Artificial Heart” and “Periplum.” He has edited the magazine “o.blek,” the anthology “Exact Change Yearbook” and “The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer.” Willis has been anthologized in the Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative North American Poetry and in the 1994 National Poetry Series. She holds a doctorate in Poetics from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Friday, April 22

Fiction writer Joy Williams, author of “Ill Nature: Some Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals,” will present a reading of her poetry at 7:30 p.m. at the Hemingway Center. Williams’ first novel, “State of Grace,” was a National Book Award nominee in 1973. She is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Harold and Mildred Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her most recent published work, “Ill Nature,” is a collection of essays on subjects ranging from electron-probed chimpanzees to vanishing wetlands.

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Contact:

Mia Wright, Boise State MFA Program in Creative Writing, (208) 426-2669

Media Contacts:

Kathleen Craven, communications and marketing, (208) 426-3275

Rachel Bonilla, News Services, (208) 426-3196

The Office of Communications and Marketing - Boise State University
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208-426-1577
(fax)208-426-4001

email newservices@boisestate.edu

Last reviewed on Thursday, December 22, 2005