<html>
<font face="arial" size=2>Here's the mostly confirmed list of readers for
the Southern Connecticut State University spring Visiting Writers'
Series. This list does not include FOLIO readings:<br>
<br>
Thursday, February 19th, 8 p.m., EN A120, fiction writer Allen Wier (see
bio below).<br>
<br>
Connecticut Student Poets (featuring our own Greg Antonini), time during
the days February 24-26 yet to be confirmed.<br>
<br>
Monday, March 8th, 7:45 p.m. EN A120, fiction writer Kevin Canty (author
of the amazing short story collection, A STRANGER IN THIS WORLD, as well
as another story collection, two novels and even a novelization of the
movie "Rounders").<br>
<br>
Thursday, April 15th, EN A120, 8 p.m. fiction writer Valerie
Vogrin.<br>
<br>
Monday, April 19, one p.m., Commons Room, poet, memoirist and Southern
grad, Sheila Squillante.<br>
<br>
Tentatively: Wednesday, April 28th, 8 p.m., EN A120, fiction writer John
McNally and unconfirmed poet.<br>
<br>
Also TBA, SCSU fiction contest winners' reading. <br>
<br>
Y'all come! And encourage your friends and students to come.<br>
<br>
</font> Allen Wier (pronounced Wire) is the author of a collection
of stories, <i>Things About to Disappear</i>(LSU Press and Avon/Bard),
and three novels, <i>Blanco</i> (LSU Press, Avon/Bard, and Harper &
Row),<i> Departing as Air</i> (Simon & Schuster), <i>A Place for
Outlaws</i> (Harper & Row). He's edited an anthology, <i>Walking on
Water and other stories</i> (Univ. of Alabama Press), and co-edited
<i>Voicelust</i>, a collection of essays on style in contemporary fiction
(Univ. of Nebraska Press). In 1997 he received the Chubb LifeAmerica
Robert Penn Warren Award, conferred by the Fellowship of Southern Writers
biennially to "recognize an outstanding young Southern writer of
fiction." Wier is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a
grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Dobie-Paisano
Fellowship from the University of Texas and the Texas Institute of
Letters. His fiction, essays, and reviews appear in such publications as
<i>Southern Review, Five Points, Georgia Review, Ploughshares, Texas
Review,</i> and the <i>New York Times</i>. He was named Travel Writer of
the Year (1994) by the Alabama Bureau of Travel. Wier recently completed
a long historical novel, CLOUD OF WITNESSES, set in Texas during the
Comanche wars, and he is completing a literary thriller, SKIN FOR SKIN,
as well as a volume of new and selected short stories. In 2001 he was
elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers and was
inducted at the FSW s biennial meeting in April 2003. He has taught at
Longwood College, Carnegie-Mellon university, Hollins College, the
University of Texas, Florida International University, and the University
of Alabama. Born in Texas, an only child, he grew up in Texas, Louisiana
and Mexico--where his father explored the jungles of Veracruz seeking
ferns and flowers to import for the wholesale flower business in San
Antonio. Allen Wier has received the Distinguished Teaching Chair in the
English Department at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where he
lives with his wife, Donnie, and their son, Wesley.<br>
<br>
<br>
From: "tparrish" <tparrish@snet.net><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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Nancy Kuhl<br>
Assistant Curator, The Yale Collection of American Literature<br>
The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library<br>
Yale University<br>
121 Wall Street<br>
P.O. Box 208240<br>
New Haven, CT 06520-8240<br>
Phone: 203.432.2966 <br>
Fax: 203.432.4047</html>