Don't miss this!

Our last visiting writer of the semester will be Goldie Goldbloom, author of The Paperbark Shoe.

Goldbloom, a Chicago resident originally from Western Australia, has written a novel about a little-known period in the history of her native country. During World War II, eighteen thousand Italian prisoners of war were sent to Australia at the request of the British government. After Italy’s surrender, many of them were sent to work, unguarded, on farms in isolated regions. National Book Award-winning author Andrea Barrett says of The Paperbark Shoe, “I have never read anything quite like this, nor has anyone else… Brilliant.”

The Paperbark Shoe won the AWP award for the novel and was originally published as Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders. It was also the Independent Publisher's Book of the Year and has recently been reissued by Picador Press. Her short fiction has been published in her collection You Lose These, and in venues such as Prairie Schooner, Narrative, and Story Quarterly, as well as in anthologies. She is a nationally recognized speaker and an LGBT activist. She is a professor at Northwestern University and lives in Chicago with her eight children.

Join us!

Monday, November 11

4:30–6:00 p.m.

Gage Gallery

18 S. Michigan Avenue

Chicago, IL 60603

Free and open to the public

Optional RSVP here

This is BIG.

Next up in the fall reading series is Audrey Petty, editor of High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing, just out from McSweeney's/Voice of Witness.

In High Rise Stories, Audrey Petty compiles first-person accounts from former residents of some of Chicago's most iconic public housing projects.

Booklist says that the book "accomplishes its mission to give voice to public housing residents tenfold but is equally successful as a significant work of American urban history." And George Saunders writes that "Audrey Petty and her team have recorded and edited these stories in a way that is joyful, novelistic, and deeply moving. High Rise Stories radically expanded my understanding of human beings."

Audrey Petty's writing has appeared in StoryQuarterly, Callaloo, The Massachusetts Review, African American Review, The Oxford American, Saveur, ColorLines, and The Southern Review, among other publications. She is an associate professor of English at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

For more information about the book, visit Voice of Witness.

Please join us!

Thursday, October 24
4:30–6:00 p.m.
Gage Gallery
18 S. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60603
Free and open to the public
RSVP (optional) here.

... Aaaand We're Back.

The fall edition of the Roosevelt University Reading Series kicked off last Monday with a reading from yours truly. There was a good crowd, and they had a lot of great questions, and everybody seemed to have a nice time. But let's not dwell on the past, because we've got big news.

LINDSAY HUNTER IS READING AT THE GAGE GALLERY ON MONDAY, OCTOBER 7!

If you've ever read Lindsay's work or seen her read, you know why that sentence deserves all caps and an exclamation mark. If you haven't read her work, let's fix that right now. 

There's a nice selection from her most recent collection of short stories, Don't Kiss Me, at the Nervous Breakdown.

While you're there, why not find out how things went when she interviewed herself.

Now that you're excited too, here are the details:

Lindsay Hunter is the author of the story collections Don’t Kiss Me (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Daddy’s (featherproof books). She lives in Chicago, where she is the cofounder and cohost of the flash-fiction reading series Quickies!. 

Monday, October 7
4:30 – 6:00 p.m.
Gage Gallery
18 S. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60603
Free and open to the public.
You can RSVP if you want to.

Dear Blog,

Please join me at the casual end of the semester MFA reading at the Book Cellar independent book store in quaint Lincoln Square. It is this Saturday at 7pm.

You are a beautiful blog.

Love,
Dove

Roosevelt Reading Series: Kevin Brockmeier

What are you doing Wednesday, 4/10? Going to see Kevin Brockmeier at the Gage Gallery, of course! Stop by the Gage Gallery, 18 S. Michigan Ave., and hear a truly exceptional writer share some of his finest work. Doors open at 4:30 with Kevin taking the podium at 5. Light refreshment's will be served, courtesy of Roosevelt's MFA program. Admission is free and open to the public. Get there early as it's sure to be a packed house.

Kevin Brockmeier is the author of the novels The Illumination, The Brief History of the Dead, and The Truth About Celia; the children’s novels City of Names and Grooves: A Kind of Mystery; and the story collections Things That Fall from the Sky and The View from the Seventh Layer. His work has been translated into seventeen languages, and he has published his stories in such venues as The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope, Tin House, The Oxford American, The Georgia Review, The Best American Short Stories, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and New Stories from the South. He has received the Borders Original Voices Award, three O. Henry Awards (one, a first prize), the PEN USA Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NEA Grant. Recently he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he was raised.

Tiny Interview.

MFA candidate Jessica Anne asks esteemed Peggy Shinner (interim department chair, professor) a few questions. Read it. Then come to the Gage Gallery tomorrow at 4:30pm to hear Peggy read from her new book. You have to do things like this because they are important.

JA: Where'd you receive your MFA?

PS: The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.  It's a low-residency program.  And a great experience.

JA: How long have you taught at Roosevelt?

PS:Since 2006.

JA: Will you be reading from your new book?

PS: Yes.

JA: Do you ever read your own books on the train, or on a plane?

PS: I like to read other stuff on the train.  The train's moving, and my mind's moving too, away.

JA: Could I ask what your middle name is?

PS: Ann

JA: Where are you from?

PS: Chicago, all my life.

JA: How many years passed between the day you received your MFA and the day you published your first book?

PS: Too long.  It will be almost twenty years.

JA: Have you ever written poetry?

PS: No, but as an essayist I like to think I think like a poet.

JA: Do you get nervous before public readings?

PS: No, I don't.  I feel a sense of excitement, like I'm about to do something fun.


Thank You.

Knowledge is power and also a strong dove.

Peggy Shinner!

Peggy Shinner is reading to us in the Gage Gallery.

Wednesday, April 3rd. 5pm.

Reception, 4:30pm.

Please join us.

Please increase your wing span and think about the continents.

We have to stick together,
J-Dove

Billy Lombardo Presents at The Gage!

On Monday, March 25th, Roosevelt's Visiting Writer Billy Lombardo will present to the MFA community in The Gage Gallery.

In this talk on craft in fiction, Billy will address the Three Beginnings of Fiction: 1) the early life of the story: the germ of the idea whence the story is born; 2) the access intro; and 3) and the final intro.

Billy will talk about the joys and dangers that come with the first crush of an idea, staying open to discovery, and he’ll give you the best piece of advice no one ever told him.

Born and raised in Bridgeport, Billy Lombardo is the co-founder and managing editor of Polyphony H.S., an international literary magazine for high school writers and editors. His books include How to Hold a Woman, The Man with Two Arms, and The Logic of a Rose. He also has a collection of poetry/prose titled Meanwhile, Roxy Mourns. Billy is the 2011 Nelson Algren Award winner for the Short Story. Currently on sabbatical from teaching at the Latin School, Billy lives in Forest Park where he’s working on a new novel.

Be there: 18 S. Michigan Ave. Doors open at 4:30 for coffee and conversation. Billy begins in earnest at 5 pm.

China Mieville's master class!

Tonight!

5pm!

AUD 720!!!

Don't forget!

Reasons To Walk Over To AUD 420 Today At 4:30pm:

1) Free cookies.
2) Free coffee.
3) Fun times.
4) You will be read to.
5) There's something comforting about that.
6) Pleasant conversation.
7) Lead young people to the valley of words and writing.
8) Meet a colleague. Put a face to an e-mail.
9) Cultivate community.
10) Save the world before supper time.

~Jess