Spring 2020

Community Workshop & Literary Reading
Patrick Coleman

Community Workshop
Wednesday, February 5
3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
WSU-Pullman Campus
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

In this free, community workshop, writer, artist, and curator Patrick Coleman will lead a generative writing workshop based on works currently exhibited in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. All are welcome.

Literary Reading | Q&A
Thursday, February 6
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
WSU-Pullman Campus
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Patrick Coleman writes short stories, which have been published in Hobart, ZYZZYVA, Zócalo Public Square, the Writer’s Chronicle, the Black Warrior Review, Juked, and the Utne Reader. He also writes poetry; his first collection, Fire Season, was published by Tupelo Press in 2018 and was awarded the 2015 Berkshire Prize. Patrick works as the Assistant Director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego, and through his work he enjoys exploring the relationship between visual arts and music. His first novel, The Churchgoer, was published by Harper Perennial on July 20, 2019.

Co-sponsored by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, ASWSU, and the Common Reading Program. Common Reading stamp available.

Poetry Reading | Q&A
Jericho Brown

Thursday, February 27, 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center
WSU-Pullman Campus
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Jericho Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Brown’s first book, Please (2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was named one of the best of the year by Library Journal, Coldfront, and the Academy of American Poets. He is also the author of the collection The Tradition (2019), a finalist for the National Book Award. His poems have appeared in Buzzfeed, The Nation, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Time, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry anthologies. He is an associate professor and the director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta.

Co-sponsored by ASWSU and the Common Reading Program. Common Reading stamp available.

Speculative Fiction Workshop & Reading/Performance
Petra Kuppers

Speculative Fiction Workshop, 1-credit
Tuesday, March 31 – Thursday, April 2
5:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Bundy Reading Room, Avery Hall

In this workshop, students will engage in a series of somatic movement and writing prompts geared toward learning the art and craft of speculative fiction, with a focus on “solarpunk.” Solarpunk, a type of science fiction, is a new genre for the 21st Century, a revolution against environmental despair and social injustice. “Focusing on solutions to environmental disasters, solarpunk envisions a future of green, sustainable energy used by societies that value inclusiveness, cooperation, and personal freedom” (Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation. Phoebe Wagner and Bronte Christopher Wieland). Open to WSU students of all majors, the 1-credit course includes attending Kuppers’ literary reading and reading a selection of short fiction to be distributed before the workshop begins. To enroll, contact Leisa McCormick (lmccormick@wsu.edu) in Avery Hall 202.

Reading/Performance | Q&A
Wednesday, April 1
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
WSU-Pullman Campus
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Petra Kuppers is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, a disability culture activist, a community performance artist, and a professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She uses somatic and speculative writing to engage audiences toward more socially just and enjoyable futures. She has many awards and publications to her name, most recently Ice Bar, speculative queer/crip and solar punk short stories (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018), the Star Trek-y poetry chapbook Green Orion Woman (dancing girl, 2018), and the poetry collection Gut Botany (Wayne State, 2020). She has also written academic books on disability arts and culture, medical humanities, ecopoetics, and community performance. She and her partner, the poet and dancer Stephanie Heit, founded Turtle Disco, an experimental movement and writing space, in Michigan as well as the collaborative The Asylum Project, where they invite participants “to explore together the shapes and feelings of international disability culture lives.” Petra is a Fellow at the Black Earth Institute; she also teaches on the Low-Residency MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Goddard College, and she is the Artistic Director of an international disability performance collective, The Olimpias.

Co-sponsored by the WSU Center for Arts and Humanities, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, ASWSU, and the Common Reading Program. Common Reading stamp available.