Celebrated writers of poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction visit campus several times each year to give lectures, readings, discussions, and book signings. Visiting author readings are held at 6:00 p.m. (preceded by receptions at 5:30 p.m.) in the Metzgar Center Lobby. All events are free and open to the public. Presented with the support of the Clarence A. and Eugenie Baumann Smith Fund.
Fall 2019 Author Readings
September 22 – Doug Ramspeck, Poet
Doug Ramspeck’s most recent book, Black Flowers (LSU Press, 2018), was a finalist for the 2019 UNT Rilke Prize. Other recent books include The Owl That Carries Us Away (New Letters, 2018), winner of the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction, and Original Bodies (SIU Press, 2014), selected for the Michael Waters Poetry Prize. Individual poems and stories have appeared in journals that include The Kenyon Review, Slate, The Georgia Review, and The Southern Review. A two-time recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, he is a professor of English at The Ohio State University at Lima, where he teaches creative writing. He also serves as the faculty adviser for the literary journal Asterism.
October 10 – Al Maginnes, Poet
Al Maginnes is the author of seven full length collections and four chapbooks of poetry. His poems and reviews have appeared widely in such journals as Poetry, Georgia Review, Quarterly West, North American Review and others. He lives with his family in Raleigh, North Carolina and teaches at Wake Technical Community College. He also serves as music editor of Connotations Press and was a founding member of Liberty Circus, a music and spoken word collective dedicated to raising money for progressive causes.
October 24 – Clare Beams, Fiction Writer
Clare Beams is the author of the story collection We Show What We Have Learned, which was a Kirkus Best Debut of 2016, as well as a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Her novel The Illness Lesson will be published by Doubleday/Knopf in 2020. She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and two daughters, and has taught creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University and St. Vincent College.
November 14 – Faculty Reading, George Looney, Poet (*No reception for this event)
Behrend’s own George Looney, Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing, has recently published his eleventh collection of poetry, What Light Becomes: The Turner Variations, winner of the 2018 Red Mountain Poetry Prize. Over the course of his career, his poetry has won numerous other awards, including: the White Pine Press Prize; the Bluestem Award; Missouri Review’s Larry Levis Editors’ Award; the Zone 3 Poetry Award; and fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He co-edits Behrend’s international literary journal Lake Effect.
March 26 – Kyle Minor, Fiction Writer
Kyle Minor is the author of Praying Drunk, winner of the 2015 Story Prize Spotlight Award. His work appears in Esquire, The Atlantic, Iowa Review, Missouri Review, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Best American Mystery Stories, and the New York Times Book Review. He lives in Indiana, where he is at work on a novel and a documentary film.
April 2 – Joanna Ruocco, Fiction Writer
Joanna Ruocco is the author of several books, including, most recently, The Week (The Elephants of British Columbia); Field Glass (Sidebrow Books), written with Joanna Howard; and Dan (Dorothy, a publishing project). Her novel Another Governess / The Least Blacksmith: A Diptych won the FC2 Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize. She also works pseudonymously. Under her current nome de plume, Joanna Lowell, she published Dark Season, a Gothic romance. She is an associate professor in the English Department at Wake Forest University and chair of the board of directors of the independent, author-run press Fiction Collective Two.
April 23 – Kathryn Nuernberger, Poet
Kathryn Nuernberger’s third poetry collection, Rue, is forthcoming in Spring 2020 (BOA). Her previous book, The End of Pink (BOA, 2016), won the 2015 James Laughlin prize from the Academy of American Poets, and her debut, Rag & Bone (Elixir, 2011), won the 2010 Antivenom Prize. A collection of lyric essays, Brief Interviews with the Romantic Past (Ohio State University Press, 2017), won the Non/Fiction Prize from The Journal. She teaches in the MFA Program at University of Minnesota. She has received grants from the NEA, American Antiquarian Society, and the Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life.
Previous Visiting Authors
Previous visiting authors have included: Matthew Ferrence, David Baker, Deb Olin Unferth, Jared Yates Sexton, Jen Town, Henrietta Goodman, Melissa Fraterrigo, Karen Craigo, Corey Zeller, Al Maginnes, John Gallaher, Wendell Mayo, Lia Purpura, Paisley Rekdal, Caitlin Horrocks, Robert Michael Pyle, Alice Friman, John Minichillo, Laura Kaschsiske, Thom Conroy, Sarah Gerkensmeyer, Heather Slomski, Elizabeth Kadetsky, Katie Ford, Michael Byers, Charles Baxter, and many more.