Tidbits from McCracken

Seven Bar Jokes About Grammar and Punctuation

2011-11-08T16:26:00.000-08:00

A slew of events

2011-11-08T10:32:00.000-08:00

Some day this will be a proper blog with actual entertaining content. In the meantime, readings!

This Thursday Anthony Doerr--who has won every conceivable prize for his short stories and is a wonderful writer--will be reading at the Joynes Reading Room this Thursday, November 10th, at 7PM.

Here is more information about the reading.

The Czech fiction writer, journalist, poet, and playwright Magdaléna Platzová will discuss her work at 6PM, Monday November 14th, at MEZ 1.208.

Wednesday, November 16th, at noon, The Schusterman Center is hosting Joseph Skibell, visitor at the Michener Center for Writers this semester, delivering a lecture entitled, "Heaven and Its Discontents: Spiritual Dramas of the Talmud." Everyone's welcome, but lunch is served, so RSVP by November 9th to Galt Pedahzur, galit@mail.utexas.edu.

(I was about to type, Please RSVP, but my need not to be redundant trumped my need not to appear rude.)

Justin Torres, Coleman Hutchison, Corinne Lee

2011-10-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Justin Torres, author of this year's deservedly much lauded We, the Animals, reads at Book People TONIGHT!

A Reuters piece on Torres.

The Weekend Edition review

An interview with Torres

And tomorrow, Wednesday, October 26th--Coleman Hutchison and Corinne Lee read from their poetry in the lovely, intimate, and nourishing noon reading series in the Atwood Library (Calhoun 300). Light lunch and poetry!

Oscar Casares!

2011-10-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

Oscar Casares, director of the English Department MFA Program and a hell of a writer, will give a reading this Thursday, October 20th, at 7:30PM in the Maloney Room in the Main Building at St. Edward's University, as part of their Visiting Writer Series.

A terrific piece by Casares on leaving his hometown, Brownsville (from Texas Monthly; registration free but required)

Casares recommending The Burning Plain and Other Stories for NPR's You Must Read This series

Casares's website

Bat City Returns

2011-10-02T19:22:00.000-07:00

The next Bat City reading is here, featuring the excellent Sarah Saltwick and the marvelous Leanna Petronella.

Sarah is a playwriting & fiction Michener Fellow whose plays have been produced at UT, Bristol Riverside Theater, Shrewd Productions, and elsewhere. This will be her fiction reading debut!

Leanna is a poetry and fiction Michener Fellow whose poetry has appeared in Cutbank, La Petite Zine, and Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review.

The reading is at Tom's Tabooley (I always have to look up to see how Tom spells his tabooley) at 8PM on Monday, October 3rd.

Even More Readings

2011-09-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

Holy cow, there are a lot of cool events at the University of Texas!

First: a cool event NOT at the University of Texas. Ben Markovits--an old pal of mine, a wonderful writer, and a native Austinite--is reading from the last novel in his Byron trilogy, Childish Loves (which The New Yorker calls an "elegant work of metafiction...full of provocative inquiries) at 7PM, Friday, September 30th, at Book People.

Markovits (who used to play professional basketball) in the Guardian on his hero, Michael Jordan.

An interview with Markovits in the Chronicle.

A splendid short story in The Paris Review.

Two other events tomorrow on campus:

The Brazil Center presents a talk by Brazilian writer Ana Maria Gonçalves, author of "Um defeito de cor" (A Color Defect), a novel about the Brazilian slave trade.
Time: Noon-1:30 p.m.
Location: Sid Richardson Hall (SRH), Hackett Room 1.313

The Science Study Break event features comics writer Jim Ottaviani discussing his graphic biography "Feynman," on the life of the noted Nobel laureate and nuclear physicist Richard Feynman. Cookies and chips available.
Time: 6-7 p.m.
Location: Welch Hall (WEL) 2.224

Back!

2011-09-27T14:01:00.000-07:00

It disturbs me that I thought this morning, If only I could update my blog my just thinking at the computer really hard! Ordinarily I have an appropriate anxiety about machines reading my mind.

Dale Rapley, part of the visiting the Actors from the London Stage troupe, will read from The Sea and the Mirror, Auden's gloss on The Tempest on Wednesday, September 28th, at noon.

A reel of Dale Rapley's clips at Vimeo.
Actors from the London Stage at the University of Texas

Embarrassment of Riches

2011-09-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night!

Karen Tei Yamashita, author of five novels including last year's National Book Award finalist, I Hotel, reads September 20th, at 7PM, at the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center, The Connally Banquet Hall, at 2110 San Jacinto.

There's no better ad than this transfixing five minute reading at the Makeout Room in San Francisco.

An interview with Karen Tei Yamashita at Bookslut (one of my favorite book sites, if you can't tell).

Also! Nicole Krauss, author of Great House, reads from her work and speaks with Michener Center for Writers director James Magnuson at the Harry Ransom Center at 7PM.

There are lots of goodies, including audio interviews, at her beautifully designed website.

A PBS interview with Krauss at PBS.org

Bat City Reading Series Begins!

2011-09-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

Monday night is the first of the Bat City readings. This year the readings will be held at Tom's Tabooley at 2928 Guadalupe. If you like excellent literature and bulgur wheat, you're in luck. (You're in luck even if you don't like bulgur wheat.)

This Monday, September 19th, at 8PM, the series presents Michener Center for Writers Fellows Claire Sylvester Smith, a poet whose work has won the Hopwood Award from the University of Michigan, and Ben Roberts, whose fiction has been published in the Harvard Review and Quarterly West.

The Bat City Review website.

Unstuck, the new annual of speculative fiction (Ben Roberts is an assistant editor).

Two readings coming up by two wonderful fiction writers on Tuesday, Karen Tei Yamashita and Nicole Krauss.

Dominic Smith at Book People this Friday

2011-09-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

Dominic Smith--MCW alum and frequent visitor to the UT English Department and terrific writer--has a new book out, and it's already getting extraordinary reviews. He's appearing at Book People Friday, September 16th. According to the Book People Website, he will be serving "his own Rooftop Punch inspired by the novel." (Boldface Book People's own.) According to someone in my fiction workshop this morning, said punch has gin in it!

The Kirkus Reviews review will make you want to read it instantly.

You can listen to an interview or read the transcript here.

Dominic Smith's website.

TILTS!

2011-09-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

This year's Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies, co-directed by Professors Lisa Moore and Meta DuEwa Jones, is bringing some incredible poets and scholars to campus. This week is the fall symposium, with two packed, wonderful days:

Wednesday September 14th:

At noon, Poetry on the Plaza in front of the Harry Ransom Center: The Emperors of Ice Cream, featuring poetry and also actual ice cream.

At 3PM, in the Denius Room at the HRC, a Poets' Roundtable on African-American writing, feminism, and queer diasporas with Evie Shockley, Dante Micheaux, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Dawn Lundy-Martin, and Chanel Clarke.

At 5:30PM, a reception and book signing in the lobby of the HRC before

At 7PM, a reading in honor of David Wevill by poet and scholar Harryette Mullen, winner of the Wallace Stevens Award from the American Academy of Poets.

Haryette Mullen's biography at the Poetry Foundation.

Harryette Mullen reading "Wipe that Simile off Your Aphasia."

A review of Sleeping with the Dictionary at The New York Times.

On Thursday:

At 3PM in the Denius Room at the HRC, a Scholars' Roundtable with Yolanda Pierce, Aldon Nielsen, Keith Leonard, Gershon Avilez, and Roger Reeves.

At 5PM, a reception and booksigning before,

At 7PM, the TILTS Poetics Lecture in Honor of Thomas Cable, by Arnold Rampersad, winner of the National Humanities Medal.

Arnold Rampersad’s biography at Stanford.

An interview with Arnold Rampersad at Bookslut.

Arnold Rampersad speaks about Langston Hughes.

New Fellowship at Kenyon College

2011-09-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

A terrific new post-grad fellowship at Kenyon College:

$32,500 a year plus health insurance.
One semester of teaching.
One semester of working with the Kenyon Review and the Kenyon Review Online.
Deadline December 1st.

More details here.

Opener

2011-09-07T13:35:00.000-07:00

Hello!

I've been meaning to start this blog for a while.

Here I'll post announcements for readings, deadlines for contests and fellowships, and the occasional literary curiosity, aimed at creative writers here at the University of Texas, Austin.

A few upcoming events on campus:

First fiction:

Thursday, September 8th, Alex Shakar, Michener Center for Writers alum, reads at Book People from his new novel, Luminarium.

Here is his website.

Here is an essay about the publication of his first novel.

Thursday, September 15th, at 7PM, Chang-Rae Lee, finalist this year for the Pulitzer Prize, reads at the Joynes Reading Room.

A review of The Surrendered at The New York Times.

Chang-Rae Lee reading at Warwick's Books in La Jolla, CA

Coming up: a packed week for the 3rd Annual Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies!