Announcing the Inaugural Little Grassy Literary Festival
Sponsored by the Graduate Writers Forum, SIUC
featuring readings from and events with Jesse Lee Kerchval, Robert Wrigley, and SIUC MFA grad Greg Schwipps (MFA '98).
Festival Schedule:
April 2
4pm Jesse Lee Kercheval reading
SIUC Student Center Video Lounge 4th Floor
8pm Robert Wrigley reading
SIUC Student Center Video Lounge 4th Floor
April 3
9:30am Panel Discussion with all three readers
SIUC Student Center Auditorium 2nd Floor
11am Greg Schwipps reading
SIUC Student Center Auditorium 2nd Floor
12pm Book signing and reception
SIUC Student Center Old Main Lounge 2nd Floor
Refreshments and Light fare to be provided
VISITING WRITER BIOS:
Jesse Lee Kercheval is the author of several books, including the poetry collection honoring silent cinema, Cinema Muto, which won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry. She also wrote the short story collections The Alice Stories, which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, and The Dogeater. A versatile writer, Kercheval also has a novel, a memoir, and a textbook, as well as several other poetry collections to her credit. Other awards include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Radcliffe Research and Study Center at Harvard, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and more. Kercheval grew up in Florida. Now she is the Sally Mead Hands Bascom Professor of English and a founding director of the master’s of fine arts program in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Robert Wrigley has six poetry collections to his credit, including the San Francisco Center Book Award winner, In the Bank of Beautiful Sins, and the 2000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award winner Reign of Snakes. He has five Pushcart Prizes, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, Best American Poetry selections and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. Wrigley is originally from a coal mining family from East St. Louis. He is on the creative writing faculty at the University of Idaho.
Greg Schwipps is an SIUC MFA alumnus presently on the creative writing faculty at DePauw University. His novel, What This River Keeps, is due for release later this spring from Ghost Road Press. His essays and articles appear in such publications as In-Fisherman, Outdoor Indiana and Esquire.
