Panelists explore
literary landscape
La Grande, Oregon – A panel discussion with nationally-recognized authors and editors Thomas E. Kennedy, Lance Olsen, Duff Brenna and Diane Higgins will be from 3:30 - 5 p.m. in the Alumni Room in Ackerman Hall 208, Thursday, April 7, at Eastern Oregon University.
David Memmott, an EOU alum and local publisher, will serve as moderator for the talk entitled “From San Marcos to Copenhagen: Navigating the Modern Literary Landscape.” Kennedy, Olsen and Brenna will read from their novels in Groth Recital Hall in Loso Hall 126, from 7:30 - 9 later that evening.
Kennedy, who lives in Denmark, has presented two Ars Poetica readings at EOU, and conducted a weeklong fiction-writing workshop with Jodi Varon, EOU professor of English. His latest writing includes a collection of three novels individually titled Kerrigan’s Copenhagen, Bluett’s Blue Hours, and Green’s Summer, which make up the Copenhagen Quartet. Wordcraft of Oregon published several of Kennedy’s books. A new book, The Literary Traveler, co-written by Kennedy, was launched at the Associated Writing Programs Conference (AWP) in Vancouver, B.C., earlier this month. Kennedy has received the Pushcart Prize, the Angoff Award, the O.Henry Award, for his literary achievements.
Author of five novels, Brenna, is a full-time freelance writer from Minnesota. Brenna’s The Book of Maime, received the AWP Award for Best Novel. Other works include The Holy Book of the Beard, Too Cool, and The Altar of the Body. Brenna’s latest work, The Willow Man, will be published later this fall. He is the recipient of the Pushcart Prize Honorable Mention Award, the Milwaukee Magazine’s Best Short Story Fiction Award, San Diego Writers Award.
Olsen has also spent time in La Grande with wife Andi, where he collaborated on an art installation in EOU’s Nightingale Gallery, and read for Ars Poetica. Olsen has written six novels, four critical studies, four collections of short stories, a poetry chapbook and a textbook on the art of fiction writing. His work has been published in Fiction International, Village Voice, Best American Non-Required Reading. Olsen is a Pushcart Prize recipient, and a former Idaho Writer-in-Residence. His seventh novel, 10:01, will be published this month. Olsen and his wife currently reside in central Idaho.
As a Senior Editor for St. Martins Press/Picador USA in New York, Higgins has acquired well-known titles for publication such as The Pianist, a holocaust memoir by Wladyslaw Szpilman, and In the Face of Jinn, a novel about a woman searching for her kidnapped sister among the Taliban and tribes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, by Cheryl Howard Crew. Prior to becoming a full-time editor, Higgins worked as a publicity director, which helped her understand the marketing side of the publishing business. Higgins lives in New York and La Grande.
On Friday, April 8, Kennedy, Olsen and Brenna will read at the Coffin House beginning at 7 p.m. Fishtrap, Inc., will sponsor the reading in conjunction with the Mountain Writers Series. For more information about the authors panel and reading in La Grande, contact David Memmott at dmemmott@oregontrail.net. For a list of Fishtrap events, contact Rich Wandschneider at rich@fishtrap.org.
Eastern Oregon University
University Advancement
One University Boulevard
Ackerman Hall, Room 209
La Grande, OR 97850
Phone: 541-962-3740
Fax: 541-962-3680
Email: advancement@eou.edu