Bennington College Invites the Public to Writers' Readings

December 22, 2005

Bennington College is pleased to welcome the public to its winter reading series as part of the graduate Writing Seminars Winter Residency. Faculty members of the Master of Fine Arts program will present the following readings, free of charge, at 7:00 pm in Tishman Lecture Hall on the College's campus.

Thursday, January 5, 2006

Jill McCorkle and Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Friday, January 6, 2006

David Gates and Nuala O'Faolain

Saturday, January 7, 2006

Barbara Lazear Ascher and Liam Rector

Sunday, January 8, 2006

Doug Anderson and Christine Schutt

Monday, January 9, 2006

Tom Bissell and Jane Ciabattari

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Susan Kinsolving and Sheila Kohler

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Ben Cheever and Timothy Liu

Friday, January 13, 2006

April Bernard and Barry Lopez

Location and schedule is subject to change. Please call 802-440-4452 for more information.

Thursday, January 5

Jill McCorkle and Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Jill McCorkle has published five novels: Carolina Moon, Ferris Beach, Tending to Virginia, The Cheer Leader and July 7th, and three short story collections, Creatures of Habit, Final Vinyl Days and Crash Diet, all from Algonquin Press. One of her stories appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2001.

Lynne Sharon Schwartz's novels and books of short stories are The Writing on the Wall (Counterpoint Press 2005), Referred Pain and Other Stories (Counterpoint Press, 2004), In the Family Way: An Urban Comedy (Morrow, 1999), The Fatigue Artist (Scribner, 1995), Leaving Brooklyn (Houghton Mifflin, 1989), The Melting Pot and Other Subversive Stories (Harper & Row, 1987), Acquainted with the Night (Harper & Row, 1984), Disturbances in the Field (Harper & Row, 1983), Balancing Acts (Harper & Row, 1983), Rough Strife (Harper & Row, 1981). Her books of nonfiction are Face to Face: A Reader In the World (Beacon, 2000), Ruined By Reading: My Life in Books (Beacon, 1996), and We Are Talking About Homes: A Great University Against Its Neighbors (Harper & Row, 1984). Ms. Schwartz has also published a book of poems, In Solitary (Sheep Meadow, 2002) and A Lynne Sharon Schwartz Reader features personal essays, short stories, and poems (University Press of New England in 1992).

Friday, January 6

David Gates and Nuala O'Faolain

David Gates' novels are The Wonders of the Visible World (Knopf, 1999), Preston Falls (Knopf, 1998), and Jernigan (Knopf, 1991).

Nuala O'Faolain's books of nonfiction are Are You Somebody? (Holt, 1998), which has been translated into eight languages, Almost There (2003), a New York Times Notable Book, and The Story of Chicago May (2005), all published by Riverhead, an imprint within PenguinPutnam. She has also published a novel, My Dream of You.

Saturday, January 7

Barbara Lazear Ascher and Liam Rector

Barbara Lazear Ascher is the author of four books of nonfiction, Dancing in the Dark: Romance, Yearning, and the Search for the Sublime (HarperCollins, 1999), Landscape Without Gravity (Viking, Penguin, 1994), The Habit of Loving (Random House, 1990), and Playing After Dark (Doubleday). Her books have been published internationally and her work anthologized widely.

Liam Rector is the founder and director of the Writing Seminars. His books of poems are The Executive Director Of The Fallen World, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press in 2006, American Prodigal (Story Line, 1994), and The Sorrow Of Architecture (Dragon Gate, 1984). He edited The Day I Was Older: On the Poetry of Donald Hall (Story Line, 1989) and, co-edited, with Tree Swenson, On The Poetry of Frank Bidart: Fastening the Voice to the Page, to be published by the University of Michigan Press in 2006.

Sunday, January 8

Doug Anderson and Christine Schutt

Doug Anderson's books of poems are Blues for Unemployed Secret Police (Curbstone, 2000), The Moon Reflected Fire (Alice James, 1995), and Bamboo Bridge (1991).

Christine Schutt is the author of two collections of stories, Nightwork (Knopf, 1996) and the recently published A Day, A Night, Another Day, Summer (Northwestern University Press in cloth, and forthcoming in paper from Harcourt-Harvest in June of 2006). Her first novel, Florida (Northwestern University Press, 2004,), was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Monday, January 9

Tom Bissell and Jane Ciabattari

Tom Bissell's books are Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia (Pantheon, 2003), Speak, Commentary, with Jeff Alexander (McSweeney's, 2003), and God Lives in St.Petersburg and Other Stories (Pantheon, 2005).

Jane Ciabattari is a fiction and nonfiction writer, a book critic, and a cultural writer. She has published Stealing the Fire: Stories (Canio's Editions, 2002), To the End of Time, a 2005 e-book based on a Columbia Journalism Review piece on the Time-Warner merger, and Winning Moves: How to Come Out Ahead in a Corporate Shakeup (Penguin, 1989).

Tuesday, January 10: NO READINGS

Wednesday, January 11

Susan Kinsolving and Sheila Kohler

Susan Kinsolving's books of poems are The White Eyelash (Grove Press, 2003), Dailies and Rushes (Grove Press, 1999), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, and Among Flowers (Random House, 1993).

Sheila Kohler is the author of five novels, Crossways (Ontario Review Press, 2004), Children of Pithiviers (Zoland, 2001), Cracks (Zoland, 1999), The House on R Street (Knopf, 1994), and The Perfect Place (Knopf, 1989), and three books of short stories, Stories from Another World (Ontario Review Press and distributed by Norton, 2003), One Girl (Helicon Nine, 1999), and Miracles in America (Knopf, 1990). The Other Press is publishing the paperback editions of Crossways and The Perfect Place.

Thursday, January 12

Ben Cheever and Timothy Liu

Ben Cheever's book of nonfiction is Selling Ben Cheever (Bloomsbury, 2004), and he has written nonfiction extensively as an essayist and journalist. He has worked as a senior editor at Reader's Digest. His novels are Famous After Death (Bloomsbury, 2000), The Plagiarist (1994) and The Partisan (1994), both published by Atheneum, and The Good Nanny, published last year by Bloomsbury. Mr. Cheever resides in Pleasantville, New York.

Timothy Liu's books of poems are Of Thee I Sing (University of Georgia, 2004), Hard Evidence (Talisman House, 2001), (Copper Canyon, 2001), Say Goodnight (Copper Canyon, 1998), and Vox Angelica (Alice James, 1992). E Pluribus Unum a.k.a. Kamikaze Pilots in Paradise (Southern Illinois Press, 2005).

Friday, January 13

April Bernard and Barry Lopez

April Bernard is a poet, novelist, and essayist. Her books of poems are Swan Electric (W.W. Norton, 2002), Blackbird Bye Bye (Random House, 1989), which received from the Academy of American Poets the Walt Whitman Award, and Psalms (W.W. Norton, 1993). In 1990, Norton published Pirate Jenny, a novel.

Barry Lopez is an essayist and a fiction writer. His books include Vintage Lopez (Vintage, 2004), Arctic Dreams (Scribners, 1986), which received the National Book Award, and Of Wolves and Men (Scribners, 1978), a National Book Award finalist. His essays are collected also in two books, Crossing Open Ground and About This Life. His eight works of fiction include Light Action in the Caribbean (Knopf, 2000), Field Notes (Knopf, 1994), and Resistance (Knopf, 2004).