Kathleen Rooney Reading!

 

The RU reading series is proud to present our next reader, Kathleen Rooney, who is celebrating her new novel in poems, ROBINSON ALONE. Not to be missed: the book reads like a sensory exploration of a past in which every detail is consequential, like a wild party which hasn’t let up for one hundred years. The book is an experience in perspective and imagination. Come, hear, enjoy!

 

 

The reading will be held Monday, November 12, at the Gage Gallery. Doors open at 4:30, with the reading from 5-6. Free and open to the public, tell your friends!

 

Roosevelt Reading Series Fall Line-Up

Want to know what’s in this fall? It isn’t sweater-vests or crocs, knit scarves or color-blocking. The newest fashion this season is the Roosevelt Reading Series, which is proud to announce its full line-up of visiting authors, bringing you the best of the best from every corner of the literary world! So in right now: Amelia Gray, Billy Lombardo, China Miéville, and Kathleen Rooney!

Amelia Gray: Monday, October 8, 5-6pm (doors open at 4:30), Gage Gallery

Not afraid of lions, our first visiting author, Amelia Gray, has penned three books, AM/PM, Museum of the Weird, and Threats. She has been awarded the Ronald Sukenick/American Book Review Innovative Fiction Prize. Join us on October 8^th in welcoming Amelia!

Billy Lombardo: Monday, October 22, 5-6pm (doors open at 4:30), Gage Gallery

Chicago native and Roosevelt writer-in-residence, Billy Lombardo is the author of five books, including The Man with Two Arms, and The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories, which was a Chicago Tribune Best Fiction of 2005 selection. Billy is the co-founder and artistic director of Polyphony H.S., a student-run national literary magazine for high school writers and editors. 

China Miéville: Monday, November 5, 5-6pm (doors open at 4:30), Angell Reading Room (10^th floor, Roosevelt Library)

Hailing from London, China Miéville is a visiting author to Roosevelt this year, giving a reading and a master’s class. He is an award-winning fiction author, comic writer and academic. Self-described as an author of ‘weird fiction,’ or the movement known as the New Weird, his writing is both intriguing and wildly entertaining.

China is a three-time winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award and has also won the British Fantasy Award twice. The City & The City, an existential thriller, was published to dazzling critical acclaim and drew comparison with the works of Kafka and Orwell and Philip K. Dick. His previous novel, Embassytown was a first and widely praised foray into science fiction (published in 2011).

Kathleen Rooney: Monday, November 12, 5-6pm (doors open at 4:30), Gage Gallery

Kathleen Rooney is a poet, essayist, professor, visiting writer to Roosevelt University and founding editor of Rose Metal Press. Her writing is exciting and fresh (and sometimes on-demand). Her latest solo poetry collection, Robinson Alone, is forthcoming from Gold Wake Press.

Join us in welcoming these great talents!

 

Oyez Review Volume 39 Reading!

Hear ye, Hear ye! Gather ‘round for a reading of the latest and greatest from the good folks at the Oyez Review. Volume 39, masterfully put together by the Fall interns, is fresh from the printer and full of great writing!

The highlight of Thursday’s event will be Timothy Moore, reading his short story, ‘The Woman with Yellow Fingernails.’ Other pieces of fiction, as well as poetry and creative nonfiction will be on the agenda. There is something for everyone in this year’s volume!

The reading will be held in the Gage Gallery, Thursday, March 29, at 5pm. Doors open at 4:30. Get there early to make sure you get a seat!

Albert Goldbarth Reading this Monday

Are you tired of minimalism? Think that sometimes it's nice to hear a pond described as something more than “pond-like?” We've got just the thing- Albert Goldbarth, essayist, poet, two time winner of the National Book Award will be reading this Monday at 5 PM in the Gage Gallery.

Albert "Has already heard all the gold-puns in the world" Goldbarth

Goldbarth's writing style has been described by Slate as “effusive, sprawling, and instantly recognizable,” His poetry is both passionate, and extremely funny. A prime example of Goldbarth's work is “The Library”, an ode to the immense power of literature.  In the poem, Goldbarth recounts the stories and significance of each book on his shelves, with lines which are relatable and also fantastical-

This book is a vivisected frog, and ova its text.
This book was dictated by Al-Méllikah, the Planetary Spirit of the Seventh
   Realm, to his intermediary on Earth (the Nineteenth Realm), who
   published it, first in mimeograph, and many editions later in gold-
   stamped leather.
This book taught me everything wrong about sex.
This book poured its colors into my childhood so strongly, they remain a
    dye in my imagination today.
This book is by a poet who makes me sick.
This is the first book in the world.

In addition to his poetry, Goldbarth is an accomplished prose writer, having penned both a novel and four collections of essays. His essays cover a wide range of topics from archeology to horror movies, and have been called “an artful joining of disparate entities into something new that illuminates as it entertains” by the New York Times.

Come see this Chicago-born literary-alchemist at the Gage Gallery, this Monday, March 15^th. Doors will open for the event and 4:30, and the reading will begin at 5:00.

Janet Wondra and Regina Buccola Poetry Reading!

Forgot to get your sweetheart something for Valentine’s Day? Couldn’t find a restaurant that would take a last minute reservation? Not to worry! Bring your loveliest love, your sweetheartiest sweetheart, your freshest squeeze, to the Roosevelt Reading Series’ poetry double feature, Thursday, February 16. In front of the mic will be Janet Wondra and Regina Buccola!

Janet Wondra will be reading from her chapbook, Bad Attitude, still fresh from the printer!

Regina Buccola will be reading from her chapbook, Conjuring, from Finishing Line Press!

The reading will be held at the Gage Gallery, Thursday, February 16. Doors open at 4:30, reading begins at 5. Get there early for food and drink!

Michael Erard Reading from New Book, Babel No More!

Michael “hyperpolyglottery is the new black” Erard

The Roosevelt University Reading Series is proud to kick off our 2012 season with a reading from writer, journalist, and metaphor designer Michael Erard! He will be reading from his new book, Babel No More. See what all the buzz is about in this excerpt!

The reading will be in the Gage Gallery, Monday, January 30^th. Doors open at 4:30, reading begins at 5. Get there early for cookies, coffee, and conversation!

Michael Erard’s new book, Babel No More, deals with the controversial subject of hyperpolyglots, or people who claim to be able to speak multiple languages—anywhere from 11 up to a supposed world-record of 72 different languages. According to an article in The Economist, the book asks objective questions of what it truly means to be multilingual— “Is instant availability of native-like competence the only standard for knowing a language? How should partly knowing a tongue be tallied? What if you can only read it?”

Come ready to discuss these and other rhetorical questions in your language of choice as we welcome Michael Erard!



RU MFA Graduate Reading This Tuesday

It's sad, but it's true, they're leaving us!  This Tuesday, join us in celebrating the work of Marynia Kolak, Katie Leimkuehler, and Brittany Turski at their Graduate Reading.  With beautiful work in both Fiction and Nonfiction, the evening promises to be a literary event worth celebrating.  The reading will be in the Gage Gallery (18 S Michigan Ave) at 5:30.  Coffee and refreshments will be offered before the reading, so get there early to reserve your seat.  We hate to see these talented women go, but we love to hear them read!

photo by the name is Josh

Kolak Thesis Nominated for Ostrowsky Award

Maynia Kolak, one of the readers in the Graduate Reading this Tuesday, April 26th, at the Gage Gallery (doors open at 5), has had her thesis work nominated for the Samuel Ostrowsky Award, which is conferred each year on student work in Literature and Languages, History, Art History, Philosophy, and Women's and Gender Studies!

A faculty member has to be the one to nominate a student for this prestigious award, and all nominees will be honored along with the winners at the Honors and Awards Ceremony for the Departments of Literature and Languages, Art History, and Philosophy. The Award Committee is convening to select top honors, in the meantime, it being an honor just to be nominated, you should congratulate Marynia when you see her reading at the Graduate Reading this Tuesday - or maybe just wait for her to read first, it's rude to interrupt!

John Dufresne closes out Reading Series

Join us Monday April 11th in the Gage Gallery for the last RU reading series of the semester.  Roosevelt welcomes John Dufresne, the author of the novels Louisiana Power and Light, Deep in the Shade of Paradise, and Requiem, Mass., as well as the short story collections, The Way That Water Enters Stone and Johnny Too Bad. He also has two guides to writing fiction, The Lie that Tells a Truth and, most recently, Is Life Like This?

Dufresne will be reading at 5:00 as well as signing your books and answering questions.  Don't be shy! Come buy early and sip coffee and eat cookies with us before hand!  18 S Michigan Avenue!


photo from John Dufresne

Graduate Reading!

Spring 2011 Graduate Reading

Tuesday April 26th 5:30 p.m.

Gage Gallery

OH

MY

GOSH!

Save the Date! Come out and hear our lovely graduates read their work.

Reading Series Welcomes Kim Dana Kupperman, March 29th

This coming Tuesday, the Roosevelt Reading Series welcomes Kim Dana Kupperman, author of the critically acclaimed collection of essays, I JUST LATELY STARTED BUYING WINGS, from Graywolf Press. This powerful collection has received the 2009 Katherine Bakeless Nason Prize in Nonficion from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference. Kim is the founder of Welcome Table Press, which dedicates itself to publish and celebrate the essay and all of it's forms. She also is the current managing editor of The Gettysburg Review and teaches nonfiction at Fairfield University. Her writing has appeared in Alaska Quarterly, Fourth Genre, Baltimore Review, Best American Essays 2006, and many, many more publications.  

Come on by, Tuesday, March 29th! Coffee and conversation will commence at 4:30, and the reading itself will begin at 5:00. Say hello to friends and some great literary nonfiction, and goodbye to March as it flies away, on wings, perhaps, perhaps not.    

Reading Series welcomes Jericho Brown, March 1st

This Tuesday the Roosevelt Reading Series welcomes acclaimed poet Jericho Brown.  Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. The recipient of the Whiting Writers Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland, Brown is an Assistant Professor at the University of San Diego.  His first book of poetry, PLEASE, won the American Book Award.  

Stop by the Gage Gallery on Tuesday March 1st.  Coffee and conversation will begin at 4:30 and the reading will begin at 5:00.  With Brown and the RU Reading Series, you can welcome March in like a line of poetry, not  a lion. 

MFA Graduate Reading

Next week, on True Life: I'm an MFA Graduate. On Monday November 8th, Dustin Flickinger, Alexander York, and Gilberto Zamora will share their stories (and poems). Trust us, you don't want to miss this (they're good).

The reading will be held in the Gage Gallery at 5pm, with coffee and conversation at 4:30pm. There have been rumors of cake, but you'll only know for sure if you tune in (and show up) at 18 S Michigan to see for yourself. Come support Roosevelt's magnificent graduates.

Ben Fountain Reading on Monday!

In 1986, Ben Fountain left his stable job as an associate at a Realty office in Dallas to devote himself entirely to writing. Since then, he has been published in Harper's, the Paris Review, and Stories form the South: The Year's Best, 2006. His work has earned the PEN/Hemingway Award, The Barnes &Nobles Discovery award, an O.Henry Prize, and two Pushcart prizes, among others.

This Monday we welcome him to Roosevelt to read from and speak about his award winning collection Brief Encounters with Che Guevara.

Don't miss Ben Fountain at the Gage Gallery tomorrow, on Monday September 27th. Coffee, cookies and stimulating conversation at 4:30 pm. Peruse the new exhibit, Crisis & Opportunity: Documenting the Global Recession. Fountain reads from his collection at 5:00pm. We would be delighted if you might join us.