Indian Springs Visiting Writers Series

This is all we know right now:

BIRMINGHAM, AL - TUESDAY, JANUARY 17TH at 6 PM

Books A Million at Indian Springs School Concert Hall
190 Woodward Drive
Indian Springs, AL  35124
Ticket email address forthcoming; for now you can order by phone at (205) 870-0213

Jan. 17, 6:00, ISS Concert Hall
Novelist John Green

John Green (ISS Alum ‘95) is the New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. He is also the coauthor, with David Levithan, of Will Grayson, Will Grayson. He will be in town promoting his new book, The Fault in our Stars.

Jan. 30, 7:30, Library Reading Room
Poets Joseph P. Wood and Daniela Olszewska

Joseph P. Wood is the author of two full collections of poetry, Fold of the Map (Salmon Poetry Ltd, Fall 2012 forthcoming) and  I & We (CW Books, 2010). Wood teaches creative writing, English and American literature, and composition at The University of Alabama. In 2009, he co-founded Slash Pine Projects, an undergrad internship that focuses on immersion learning and community arts.

Daniela Olszewska is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Citizen J (Artifice Books, forthcoming) and cloudfang : : cakedirt (Horse Less Press, forthcoming). She is pursuing her MFA at the University of Alabama, where she teaches creative writing in conjunction with The Alabama Prison Arts & Education Project and serves as the Poetry Editor for Black Warrior Review.

Feb. 6, 7:30, Library Reading Room
Poets Megan Kaminski and Bruce Covey

Megan Kaminski is the author of one book, Desiring Map (Coconut Books 2012), and five chapbooks of poetry. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in a variety of publications including American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Post Road, Puerto del Sol, and Third Coast. She teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Kansas, where she also directs the Undergraduate Creative Writing Exchange and the Undergraduate Reading Series.

Poet and Editor Bruce Covey was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, and educated at Yale University, where he earned an MA in English literature. Covey is the author of several collections of poetry, including Glass Is Really a Liquid (2010), Elapsing Speedway Organism (2006), and The Greek Gods as Telephone Wires (1992). The editor of the online poetry journal Coconut and its sister press, Coconut Books, Covey has taught at the Atlanta College of Art and Emory University, where he also serves as senior director of technical services for campus life.

Feb. 27, 7:30, Library Reading Room
Poet Douglas Ray
Book Release Party!

Douglas Ray received his B.A. summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in classics and English and his M.F.A. in poetry from The University of Mississippi.  A United States Presidential Scholar (2004), he was a 2010 Lambda Literary Foundation Poetry Fellow.  He has received fellowships and scholarships from The University of Mississippi, The University of Ulster (Northern Ireland), Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (South Africa), the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and The Oxford American.  He publishes poems, essays, and book reviews.  He Will Laugh is his first book.  He teaches English and directs summer programs at Indian Springs School in Birmingham, Alabama. Here is a preview!

April 5, 7:30, Library Reading Room
Author Michael Levy

The author of Kosher Chinese, Michael Levy is an educator, writer, and traveler, who currently teaches in Brooklyn, New York, at Saint Ann’s School. Levy returns frequently to Guiyang to check in on his students and visit the basketball courts where he momentarily attained stardom. While in the United States, he keeps strictly kosher. While in China, he eats anything with four legs except the table.

April 13, 3:30 p.m., Location TBD
Graphic Novelist Howard Cruse (ISS ‘62)

While at Indian Springs Howard Cruse (Class of ’62) was Mayor and an editor of The ISSINFO, which was the campus newspaper in those days. After graduating from ISS he attended Birmingham-Southern College, where he majored in drama, after which he followed a circuitous career path that included acting, magazine and television art direction, and puppeteering before he finally settled into steady work as a cartoonist and comics creator. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and underground comic books over the years, and his comic strip Wendel was a regular feature in The Advocate during the 1980s. Howard has published nine books, including the award-winning graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby, which has been translated so far into German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Polish. His forthcoming compilation, The Other Sides of Howard Cruse, will be published by Boom Studios this summer. Howard and his husband Ed Sedarbaum were partners in New York for 25 years before settling in northwestern Massachusetts in 2003.

A poem by Visiting Writer Maureen Thorson:

The orange is a sweet fruit. It grows
on a tree. Kiddo, tell me more — how
our lives recede into other people’s stories,
how the worm crawls through the apple,
how glass becomes a staple in countries
without laughter. Stories. If you’ve other
things to tell me, I’m telling you: don’t bother.
If you’ve got a bridge to sell me, let me
sell you the water. This river is no better
than your multiple dead letters, than a blank
cartouche. What’s living here’s not hatred,
nor is it any cause for worry. But if I see
your face again, I can’t say we won’t be sorry.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., October 6, 2011 — Indian Springs School (ISS) will host poet and nonfiction writer Sandra Beasley in its first installment of the ISS Visiting Writers Series on Monday, October 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the school’s Library Reading Room.

Beasley will be reading from her two prize-winning books of poetry, I Was the Jukebox and Theories of Falling, as well as her memoir Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, which offers a cultural history of food allergies in American society. The event will also include a book signing and question-and-answer session.

Beasley has been featured on NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show,” and her works have appeared in a variety of publications including the Washington Post Magazine, POETRY, Gulf Coast, The Believer, Slate, Barrelhouse, and Black Warrior Review. She lives in Washington D.C., where she earned her MFA at American University and worked for several years as an editor for The American Scholar.

Started this fall under the direction of ISS English Teacher Douglas Ray and Librarian Jessica Smith, the ISS Visiting Writers Series gives Springs students and members of the community the opportunity to hear new poetry, fiction and nonfiction from established and up-and-coming writers, who will also be visiting ISS classes in conjunction with their visit.

Upcoming installments of the series will be held November 7, when poets Shanna Compton, Maureen Thorson and Anne Boyer will be featured, and November 21, when ISS alumna, fiction writer and songwriter Laura Thomas will visit. All events are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Ray at dray@indiansprings.org or Smith at jsmith@indiansprings.org.

Indian Springs School is a national leader in coed boarding and day education in grades 8-12, located 16 miles from downtown Birmingham. Founded in 1952, the mission of the school is to develop in students a love of learning, a sense of integrity and moral courage, and an ethic of participatory citizenship. For more information, visit www.indiansprings.org.

- Melanie Kieve