A Sense of Where We Are
Summer 2007
A Sense of Where We Are is a series of public readings and talks at the University of Washington that explores the region's literature and history. In their presentations prominent writers will offer insights into aspects of regional identity and development by drawing upon current and recent work in fiction, poetry, history, memoir, and criticism. All talks will take place in the Henry Art Gallery Auditorium.
Summer 2007 Speakers
Heather McHugh has been Milliman Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the UW since 1984. Her most recent collection of poetry, Eyeshot (2003), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and she has done translations of Jean Follain and of Euripides' Cyclops. With co-translator Nikolai Popov she won the 2001 Griffin International Poetry Prize for their version of Paul Celan's poems. She's a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and editor of the 2007 Best American Poetry. Thursday 28 June, 2:00-3:30
Debra Magpie Earling is a member of the Confederated Salish
and Kootenai Tribes. Her novel Perma Red was awarded the American Book
Award in 2003. She lives in Missoula, Montana. Wednesday 11 July, 2:00-3:30
Kim Barnes was raised in the logging camps and small towns of northern Idaho. She is the author of the novel Finding Caruso (2003) and two memoirs, In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country, winner of the PEN/Jerard Award and finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize, and Hungry for the World (2000). She is co-editor with Claire Davis of Kiss Tomorrow Hello: Notes from the Midlife Underground by Twenty-Five Women Over Forty (2006). She teaches writing at the University of Idaho. Wednesday 18 July, 2:00-3:30
Robert Wrigley comes from a family of Illinois coal miners. He now directs the M.F.A. program in Creative Writing at the University of Idaho. His latest collections of poetry include Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems (2006); Lives of the Animals (2003); and Reign of Snakes (1999), winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award. Tuesday 24 July, 2:00-3:30
Richard White ranks among the most distinguished historians of the North American West. He earned his graduate degrees, and taught for nearly a decade, at the University of Washington before moving to his current position as Margaret Byrne Professor of American History at Stanford University. His award-winning publications include two classics on man and nature in the Pacific Northwest: Land Use, Environment, And Social Change (1980) on Washington’s Island County; and The Organic Machine (1995) on the Columbia River. White currently serves as president of the Organization of American Historians. Thursday 2 August, 2:00-3:30
Marilynne Robinson (UW Ph.D., 1977) is a professor at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. She received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction with Gilead. Robinson's first novel Housekeeping (1980) won a PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel and is now considered one of the leading novels of the last century. She has written two books of non-fiction: Mother Country (1989) and The Death of Adam (1998). Wednesday 15 August, 7:00-8:30
Funding support for A Sense of Where We Are comes from UW Summer Quarter; the UW Simpson Center for the Humanities; the Michael J. Repass Endowment in Pacific Northwest History; the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest; and the UW Department of History.
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