Spring reading series to feature award-winning writers, artist
The University of Houston-Victoria/American Book Review Reading Series will bring to Victoria this spring a new group of five writers, including a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a composer and media artist, and other award-winning authors and scholars.
“Each of these writers present unique perspectives that apply to many different areas of our society,” said Jeffrey Di Leo, dean of the UHV School of Arts & Sciences, and ABR editor and publisher. “From stories drawing on Caribbean folklore and culture to examinations of modern music and art, the Victoria community can expect some enjoyable presentations.”
Visiting authors will read selections from their work at 11 a.m. in the Alcorn Auditorium inside UHV University West, 3007 N. Ben Wilson St. Immediately after the readings, authors will be available to sign copies of their work. All readings are free and open to the public.
Authors scheduled for the UHV/ABR Spring Reading Series are:
Hernán Díaz, Jan. 31 – Díaz edits an academic journal for Columbia University and is the author of “Borges, Between History and Eternity.” His work has been published by Cabinet, The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, Playboy, The Paris Review, Granta and elsewhere. His first novel, “In the Distance,” was a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Book of 2017, winner of Stanford University’s Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and a finalist for the 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
Nalo Hopkinson, Feb. 21 – Hopkinson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and her birth family lived in Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, the U.S. and Canada. In 1997, she won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest for her novel, “Brown Girl in the Ring.” She has written and published nine books of fiction and a number of short stories, winning several literary awards. Hopkinson now lives in Southern California and is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, where she is a member of a faculty research cluster in science fiction.
Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, March 14 – Miller is the executive editor of ORIGIN Magazine and is a composer, multimedia artist, editor and author. His DJ MIXER iPad app has seen more than 12 million downloads during the last year. He’s produced and composed work for scores of major artists and award-winning films. His work as a media artist has appeared in museums, including The Venice Biennial for Architecture; the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany; The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh; and many other museums and galleries. His book, “Sound Unbound,” an anthology of writings about electronic music and digital media, is a best-selling title for MIT Press. Miller is a contributing editor to “C-Theory” and the executive editor of Origin Magazine, which focuses on the intersection of art, yoga and new ideas.
Julie Iromuanya, April 11 – Iromuanya has short stories and novel excerpts appearing or forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, Passages North, Cream City Review and the Tampa Review, among other journals. Her writing has been shortlisted for several awards, including the Glimmer Train Family Matters and Very Short Fiction prizes, and the Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest. She has been awarded scholarships and fellowships for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Vermont Studio Center. She earned her doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and was the inaugural Herbert W. Martin Post-Graduate Fellow at the University of Dayton. A scholar and writer, Iromuanya teaches for the creative writing Master of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona. “Mr. and Mrs. Doctor” is her first novel.
Joseph Tabbi, May 2 – Tabbi is the author of “Cognitive Fictions” and “Postmodern Sublime: Technology and American Writing from Mailer to Cyberpunk.” His biography of William Gaddis, “Nobody Grew But the Business,” was a runner-up for the biography/memoir award from the Chicago Society of Midland Authors. Most recently, he received the N. Katherine Hayles Award for the “Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature.”
ABR is a nonprofit, internationally distributed literary journal published six times a year. It began in 1977, moved to UHV in 2006 and has a circulation of about 8,000. The journal specializes in reviews of works published by small presses.
Authors are available after each reading to sign copies of their books. Each author also meets with students and attends a community reception.
For more information about the UHV/ABR Reading Series, call the ABR office at 361-570-4101 or go to www.americanbookreview.org.
The University of Houston-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 80 academic programs in the schools of Arts & Sciences; Business Administration; and Education, Health Professions & Human Development. UHV provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as an instructional site in Katy, Texas, and online classes that students can take from anywhere. UHV supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.
