Thesis Reading Series

MRA Program in Creative Writing, California State University, Fresno

Thesis Reading Series

Date: Friday, April 15, 2011
Time: 7 p.m
Place: Fresno State Alice Peters Auditorium

This event is free and open to the public. Free parking in the University Business Center (UBC) lot.

MICHELLE BRITTAN has work published or forthcoming in the journals “Crab Creek Review,” “Nimrod,” “The Grove Review,” and “Calyx,” and was the title poet for “Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25,” an anthology edited by Naomi Shihab Nye. Last year, she won the Ernesto Trejo Poetry Prize. Born in San Francisco of mixed white and Malaysian heritage, she lived in the Pacific Northwest before coming to Fresno.

MIGUEL JIMENEZ was born and raised on Chicago's South Side. Before enrolling in the MFA Creative Writing program at Fresno State, he received his B.A. in English Creative Writing from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. He was a contributing writer for “Café Magazine,” and assistant editor for the “Chicago Artists' News.”

MARIO ROSADO left his hometown Los Angeles to escape the savagery of the corporate world so that he can write a novel, leaving behind a salary position for the pursuit of art. He received his B.A. in English Education in 2001 and his Single Subject Teaching Credential in 2005, both from Cal State Long Beach, where he went on to work as a substitute and lead teacher for at-risk youth, and later a security manager for a government facility. He is happy to receive his MFA degree, but has no idea what happens next. He needs your help.

GEORGIA WILLIAMS, after many years devoted to earning tenure as a student at California State University, Fresno, earning a B.A., a M.A. in Literature, and now, at least, a MFA in Creative Writing, plans to take her show on the road. She hopes to turn her thesis into a published book and her teaching talents into a full-time teaching gig, one that allows her time to transform aforementioned thesis into aforementioned book. As Pope noted, hope springs eternal.

For more information, contact: Cindy Wathen, Public Relations Specialist, MFA Program in Creative Writing, ciwathen@csufresno.edu, 559-278-1569.

MFA Faculty Reading

The MFA Program in Creative Writing Faculty will give a prose and poetry reading on:

Date:Thursday, October 7, 2010
Time: 7:30 pm
Place: Henry Madden Library.

The event is free and open to the public. A book signing and reception will follow.

For more information contact Dr. Connie Hales, connieh@csufresno.edu or 278-2359.

Empire of Illusion :The End of Literacy and the Triumph of the Spectacle

LEON S. PETERS ETHICS LECTURE

Empire of Illusion
Chris Hedges
Date: Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Time: 8 – 9 p.m.
Place: Henry Madden Library
Table Mountain Rancheria Reading Room

Pulitzer prize–winning author and journalist Chris Hedges charts the dramatic and disturbing rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy, and illusion. Hedges argues in his new book, Empire of Illusion, that we now live in two societies. One, the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other, a growing majority, is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and
magic. In this “other society,” serious film and theatre, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins.

This event is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by The Ethics Center at Fresno State, the Leon S. Peters Foundation,
The Printise J. Womack Lectures endowment fund, and the Henry Madden Library

Contact Andrew Fiala @ afiala@csufresno.edu or visit The Ethics Center's web site at www.csufresno.edu/ethicscenter

Two Poetry Readings: Dixie Salazar & Jon Veinberg

Date: Thursday, February 25,2010
Time: 7 p.m. (reception follows)
Place: Henry Madden Library
Table Mountain Rancheria Reading Room
(3rd floor, North Wing)

Free to all. Seating is limited!

The Madden Library and the Fresno Poets’ Association* present poetry readings by Dixie Salazar and Jon Veinberg.

Dixie Salazar is the author of four books of poetry: Flamenco Hips and Red Mud Feet (Univ. of Arizona Press)is her most recent, following Hotel Fresno, Reincarnation of the Commonplace, and Blood Mysteries. She has a novel, Limbo (White Pine Press), and is also a visual artist, working primarily in oils. Her art studio, Silva Salazar Studio, is located in Fresno. Salazar has taught at Fresno State and extensively in the prisons.

Jon Veinberg is the author of several poetry collections, including An Owl’s Landscape, Stickball Till Dawn, Oarless Boats, Vacant Lots, and the recent The Speed Limit of Clouds. In addition, he was the co-editor of Piecework: 19 Fresno Poets. He has twice been awarded National Endowment for the Arts grants in poetry and his poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies.

Call (559) 278-2403 for more information.

*The Fresno Poets’ Association is now a formal program of Fresno State in conjunction with the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. For more information, please call the Library Dean’s Office at (559) 278-2403.

Joseph Stroud Poetry Reading:

Date: Thursday, November 19, 2009
Time: 7 p.m. (reception follows)
Place: Henry Madden Library
Library Auditorium, Room 2206
(2nd floor, South Wing)

Free to all. Seating is limited!

The Madden Library and the Fresno Poets’ Association* present a poetry reading by Joseph Stroud.

Stroud is the author of five books of poetry: the most recent is titled Of this World: New and Selected Poems. His work has earned a Pushcart Prize and in 2006 he was selected by the Poet Laureate of the United States for a Witter Bynner Fellowship in poetry from the Library of Congress.

Call 278-2403 for more information.

*The Fresno Poets’ Association is now a formal program of Fresno State’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing in conjunction with the Madden Library. For more information, please call the Library Dean’s Office at 278-2403.

SAVE THESE DATES for poetry readings in the Madden Library in 2010:

Dixie Salazar & Jon Vineberg, February 25; and Philip Levine, April 8.

Novelist Steve Yarbrough

Date: Thursday October 15, 2009
Time: 7:00 pm
Place: Peters Auditorium (REC CENTER)

Free and Open to the public

Please join us to welcome our good friend and nationally acclaimed fiction writer Steve Yarbrough back to Fresno for a wonderful literary evening. You will be glad you did!

Fall 2009 MFA Writers Reading Series at California State University, Fresno

Steve Yarbrough A PEN/Faulkner finalist, has received the Mississippi Authors Award, the California Book Award, the Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award, and an award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. His book Safe from the Neighbors is forthcoming from Knopf (January, 2010) He is the author of four previous novels and three collections of stories. Formerly the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Fresno State, he now teaches at Emerson College and lives with his wife in Boston

For additional info please contact Dianna Lewis, English Dept. 559.278.2553

Juan Felipe Herrera Poetry Reading

Date: Thursday, October 8,2009
Time: 7 p.m. (reception follows)
Place: Madden Library
Henry Madden Library
Library Auditorium, Room 2206
(2nd floor, South Wing)

Free to all. Seating is limited! Call 278-2403 for more information.

The Madden Library and the Fresno Poets’ Association* present a poetry reading by Juan Felipe Herrera.

Juan Felipe Herrera has published 24 volumes of poetry, prose, theatre, children’s books, and young adult novels. He received the National Book Critics Circle Award for his 2008 poetry collection, Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems. Among his other award-winning books are Downtown Boy, Calling the Doves, Crashboomlove, and Featherless/Desplumado. Herrera holds the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair in the Department of Creative Writing at UC Riverside, and is Associate Professor Emeritus of Chicano and Latin American Studies at Fresno State.

*The Fresno Poets’ Association is now a formal program of Fresno State in conjunction with the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. For more information, please call the Library Dean’s Office at 278-2403.

SAVE THESE DATES for future poetry readings in the Madden Library:

Joe Stroud, November 19; Dixie Salazar & Jon Vineberg, Feb. 25, 2010; and Philip Levine, April 8, 2010.

“AN EVENING WITH NAOMI SHIHAB NYE”

The Henry Madden Library, Young Writers’ Conference, Students of English Studies Association, San Joaquin Literary Association, and College of Arts & Humanities invite you to:

“AN EVENING WITH NAOMI SHIHAB NYE”
(POET, NOVELIST, EDUCATOR)

Date: Thursday, April 23, 2009
Time: 7 p.m.
Place: California State University, Fresno
Satellite Student Union
(FREE for all ages)

Nye, an Arab-American, writes poems that overflow with a humanitarian spirit. Her collections of poems and essays include Different Ways to Pray, 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, and Never in a Hurry. She is the author of Habibi and editor of many anthologies of poems, including This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from around the World and Is This Forever, or What? She is the winner of four Pushcart Prizes, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, and the Paterson Poetry Prize.

“Naomi Shihab Nye is a voice that America needs in its time of trouble.
Her clarity combined with her verbal kindness and her knowledge of multiple cultures provide a strong, audible message that the only hope for reconciliation and understanding lies in the ideals set by the human heart.”

—Billy Collins

For additional information please contact:

Samina Najmi, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor, Multiethnic U.S. Literature

Phone: (559) 278-2660
E-mail: snajmi@csufresno.edu

The Harlem Renaissance

Learn about the Harlem Renaissance, that flowering of Black literature, drama and music that was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City which had a profound impact on the entire African diaspora, from a man who was there—-Fitzalbert Michael Marius, M.D. Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Richard Wright, among others, are associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

Dr. Marius will be speaking in UBC 191, Thursday, September 25 at 12:15. This free event, sponsored by BFSA, is open to students, staff, faculty and the greater community. There will be relaxed parking in lots "J" and "A." (We regret that no refreshments will be available.)

A physician, Dr. Marius has practiced medicine in Fresno for approximately 49 years and was one of the original members of the first open heart surgery teams at Valley Children’s Hospital. Dr. Marius grew up in Harlem during the Depression and attended Frederick Douglass High School. It was there that he met the poet, Countee Cullen, who was one of his teachers and inspired him to pursue a career in art.

A true Renaissance man, Dr. Marius is also an illustrator, cartoonist, lecturer, poet, tailor, public speaker, community servant and Bible teacher.

A veteran, he served in the South Pacific, the Philippines and Japan . Lincoln University (cum laude), Hunter College, New York Central School of Industrial Arts, Howard University Medical School , and Stanford University ’s Stanford Lane Hospital are among the many institutions he has attended. Among his countless honors and awards: Certificates of Special Recognition by Congressman George Radanovich, State Senator Charles Poochigian, Assembly Member Sarah Reyes, Mayor Alan Autry, and the American Heart Association 2007 Honoree for 48 plus years of contribution to the establishment of Cardiac Surgery in the Valley.

Nimat R. Davis, Administrative
Support Coordinator
Political Science &
Women's Studies Program
(559) 278-7954

Learning Like a Girl: Educating Our Daughters in Schools of Their Own

Faced with a spirited eleven-year-old daughter, a concern about what therapists have called a 'poisonous' youth culture - especially for girls - and a conviction that parents need powerful tools to help their daughters realize their potential, educator-activitst Meehan decided with two other mothers to create a new school based on social science and brain research about how girls learn best. The result, The Archer School in L.A., has in only ten years become a model for girls' schools nationwide. In this entertaining, inspiring book, Meehan describes her journey to create a nrew institution to serve girls first and foremost, while laying out through vivid stories and examples what girls need to thrive. She explains why co-education so often doesn't serve them (just as it doesn't serve boys), takes sides in the controversy over male/female learning differences, and advocates for schools' role in giving girls tools to navigate through our sexualized, materialistic culture. She also visits other schools around the country - private and public - to show how single sex education works, and how every girl everywhere can benefit from having a classroom of her own.

Diana Meehan, Ph.D., is the co-founder of the Archer School for Girls and founding-director of the Institute for the Study of Women and men at USC. She currently serves on the Board of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard, the Children's Action Network, and the Communication Consortium Media Center. Meehan is a founding partner of VU Productions - a documentary film company attached to Paramount. Among her award-winning productions are Women in War (A&E) and A Century of Women (Turner Broadcasting). She is married to writer-producer Gary David Goldberg.

by Dr. Diana Meehan
B.A. English 1966
Author, Educator, Presidential Advisor
Documentary Producer