Spring Readings!
by Rebecca Doverspike
So far this semester we’ve had several wonderful readings. Karen Osborn read excerpts from Centerville, a novel published by WVU Press that centers on an explosion at a local drug store (an event that happened in Osborn’s childhood and that she further explored through writing). After her reading, a wonderful discussion took place as to how she balances creating suspense for the reader even while we already know the explosion will take place. Much the suspension created in the book happens through character development—going through each motion slowly, such that even though we now where it’s leading, we’re captivated by the details along the way. Osborn also talked about how writing is a way to try to understand or know a character, and she realized she couldn’t really know the person who started the explosion—that to think she could would be a kind of violation—and so his perspective in the book shows up as brief, italicized chapters in which mystery remains.
On Valentine’s Day, in the Robinson Reading Room, we had the pleasure of hearing Ethel Morgan Smith read from Reflections of the Other: Being Black in Germany and some entertaining short fiction. Mark Braizitis read from his novel Julia & Rodrigo as well as some poems. The reading drew to a close when faculty member Elissa Clay High gave each of the readers a jar of honey made from bees on her farm—a touching gesture that accompanied an even more touching speech about the importance of humanness, friendship, and connection between colleagues. She reminded us all of the need to see the value in one another and nurture those strengths.
We also heard from Tom Noyes, who read from Come by Here: A Novella and Stories. Here’s what novelist Darrell Spencer has to say about this collection: “Tom Noyes’ Come by Here: A Novella and Stories is a remarkable collection of narrative voices, of recalcitrant and uncomfortable souls trying to talk into existence the lives they want. But life, these talkers learn, is a stubborn thing. The novella, a brilliant one-(wo)man-band of a fiction, is emblematic of the collection in how it stitches together the past and present to reveal the phony, the fraudulent, the lie, but also in how it dazzles with its compassion for its motley coming-together of characters, who, despite their mismanaged lives, find redemption in Noyes’ prose.”
Please join us for the rest of the readings this Spring as the semester winds to a close!
On Wed. April 2nd, Diane Glancy (this year’s Native American Studies Elder-in-Residence) will give a reading in 202 Brooks Hall. There will be a welcoming reception at 7 p.m., with the reading to follow at 7:30.
On Mon. April 21st at 7:30 pm in Colson 130, there will be a reading from Calliope, the undergraduate run journal.
Stay tuned for the 418 Capstone Reading.
And Thurs. Feb. 24th marks the annual MFA reading in the Rhododendron Room at 7:30.
We hope to see you at these events!
Comments disabled
Comments have been disabled for this article.