UVSC Guest Author Series

Guest Author Reading Series 2008-2009
Last Updated 3/20/09

Lee Ann Mortensen, Coordinator: mortenle@uvu.edu 801-863-8785.
For directions to UVU, click here! Parking validations are available (see parking map).

			Photo by Susan Grant
Ed McClanahan	Wanda Coleman	Satyam Moorty	Amy Irvine
Oct. 14, 1PM in SC213B	Oct. 23, 1PM in LI 120	March 3 at 11:30AM in LI 120	April 1 at Noon in SC 206b&c
Ed McClanahan is an award winning writer and Ken Kesey Merry Prankster. He is the author of several books, including his new autobiography O the Clear Moment and the novel The Natural Man, which The New York Times Books Review predicted “will eventually find its place among great coming-of-age books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye.” Ken Sanders describes McClanahan’s place in our literary past as *an uncommon link between the 1960s California counterculture experience and a rural American lifestyle,” and that McClanahan is “part of a small group of writers whose works spanned both the end of the Beat movement “ and the famous (and infamous) late 1960’s.	Wanda Coleman is a prolific, award winning performance poet and story teller, and the “unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles.” Ishmael Reed says of her new collection Jazz and Twelve O’Clock Tales, “Having already established herself as a major, hard-hitting poet for whom there are no sacred cows” here she has stories that are gems, that are real. Sandra Cisneros says of her characters, “These are the citizens little listened to . . . [and for that] I am grateful.” Her book of poetry, Mercurochrome, was nominated for the National Book Award.	Satyam Moorty is an international Fullbright winning poet. Moorty is now serving a second term on the Board of Directors of the Utah Humanities Council. He is a biographee in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in the West, The Directory of Distinguished Americans, Dictionary of International Biography. Moorty has lectured widely on varieties of topics at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, universities and colleges in Utah, Romania, Slovenia, Moldova, Yemen, Azerbaijan, and India. He gave readings of hismpoetry in India, Bulgaria, Yemen, Romania, Moldova, Slovenia, Azerbaijan, and the U.S.at South Asia Club, Yale University. Cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethics.	Judith Lewis of the Los Angeles Times Book Review said, "Trespass might as well be Desert Solitaire's literary heir . . . It's hard to imagine a personal history more transporting that this one." A wilderness activist and apostate Mormon, Irvine writes about how she sought respite in the desert of southern Utah’s red-rock country after her father’s suicide, only to find a rugged brand of cowboy Mormonism that stands in defiant contrast to the world at large and within which she found herself to be an interloper. Her story is one of ruin and restoration, of learning to live among people who fear the wilderness the way they fear the devil. At the same time, Irvine mourns her own loss of wildness and disconnection from spirituality, while ultimately discovering that the provinces of nature and faith are not as distinct as she once might have believed. Donna Seaman of the Chicago Tribume calls the book “A singularly elegiac and astringent memoir of dissent.”

Photo by Susan Grant

Ed McClanahan

Wanda Coleman

Satyam Moorty

Amy Irvine

Oct. 14, 1PM in SC213B

Oct. 23, 1PM in LI 120

March 3 at 11:30AM in LI 120

April 1 at Noon in SC 206b&c

Ed McClanahan is an award winning writer and Ken Kesey Merry Prankster. He is the author of several books, including his new autobiography O the Clear Moment and the novel The Natural Man, which The New York Times Books Review predicted “will eventually find its place among great coming-of-age books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye.” Ken Sanders describes McClanahan’s place in our literary past as *an uncommon link between the 1960s California counterculture experience and a rural American lifestyle,” and that McClanahan is “part of a small group of writers whose works spanned both the end of the Beat movement “ and the famous (and infamous) late 1960’s.

Wanda Coleman is a prolific, award winning performance poet and story teller, and the “unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles.” Ishmael Reed says of her new collection Jazz and Twelve O’Clock Tales, “Having already established herself as a major, hard-hitting poet for whom there are no sacred cows” here she has stories that are gems, that are real. Sandra Cisneros says of her characters, “These are the citizens little listened to . . . [and for that] I am grateful.” Her book of poetry, Mercurochrome, was nominated for the National Book Award.

Satyam Moorty is an international Fullbright winning poet. Moorty is now serving a second term on the Board of Directors of the Utah Humanities Council. He is a biographee in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in the West, The Directory of Distinguished Americans, Dictionary of International Biography. Moorty has lectured widely on varieties of topics at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, universities and colleges in Utah, Romania, Slovenia, Moldova, Yemen, Azerbaijan, and India. He gave readings of hismpoetry in India, Bulgaria, Yemen, Romania, Moldova, Slovenia, Azerbaijan, and the U.S.at South Asia Club, Yale University.

Cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethics.

Judith Lewis of the Los Angeles Times Book Review said, "Trespass might as well be Desert Solitaire's literary heir . . . It's hard to imagine a personal history more transporting that this one." A wilderness activist and apostate Mormon, Irvine writes about how she sought respite in the desert of southern Utah’s red-rock country after her father’s suicide, only to find a rugged brand of cowboy Mormonism that stands in defiant contrast to the world at large and within which she found herself to be an interloper. Her story is one of ruin and restoration, of learning to live among people who fear the wilderness the way they fear the devil. At the same time, Irvine mourns her own loss of wildness and disconnection from spirituality, while ultimately discovering that the provinces of nature and faith are not as distinct as she once might have believed. Donna Seaman of the Chicago Tribume calls the book “A singularly elegiac and astringent memoir of dissent.”

Sponsored By: The UVU College of Humanities and Soctial Sciences, The English & Literature Department, Ken Sanders Rare Books, Westminster College, the Center for the Study of Ethics, and Happenings in the Humanities.

All readings take place at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, one hour south of downtown Salt Lake City, off of the I-15 University Parkway Exit (turn left at 800 W; park in the North visitor lot). Visitor parking validations are available.

Mapquest directions to UVU

Parking Map of Utah Valley University: 801-863-8000
800 W 1200 S
Orem, UT 84058, US