The annual Fall Reading Series (a.k.a., Fall Authors Series) presents a season of events celebrating literature, showcasing award-winning authors, and honoring the inspiration to write. Events are sponsored by the English Department and Creative Writing Program of Grossmont College, as well as a variety of other campus agencies and programs.
Thursday, September 15
poet James Meetze
7:00 p.m., Hyde Art Gallery (Building 25)
Poet and songwriter James Meetze received the Poet Laureate Award from the University
of California in 2001. Meetze's chapbooks--Serenades (Cy Press 2003), Instrument (Sea Lamb Press 2004), and It's Overhead (Fashionably Pressed 2007)--paved the way for the release of his first poetry collection,
I Have Designed This For You (Editions Assemblage) in 2007, and in 2010 his second collection, Dayglo (Ahsahta Press), was bestowed the prestigious 2010 Sawtooth Poetry Prize. Meetze,
who is currently a Lecturer in the Creative Writing Program at California State University,
San Marcos, co-founded the now defunct poetry movement, New Brutalism, and helped
to launch Tougher Disguises in 2002, a small press whose roster of experimental poets
includes Peter Gizzi and Clark Coolidge, among others. James Meetze is also front-man
for the alternative rock band, Dreamtiger, which released its EP, Glisten, in 2008.
Thursday, September 29
Celebration of Banned Books Reading
7:00 p.m., Room 150 (Bldg. 34)
Join Joe Medina of the Grossmont College English Department for an evening of school
and scandal with a CELEBRATION OF BANNED BOOKS, in honor of National Banned Books
Week. Topics change annually in this thought-provoking and sometimes audacious event.
Topics from past years have included Sandra Cisneros, Susan Patron, Langston Hughes,
James Joyce, Sherman Alexie, Erica Jong, J.K. Rowling, Lenny Bruce, Toni Morrison,
Alice Walker, Dorothy Allison, banned children's literature, controversial fan fiction
and slash, censored anime and manga, and many others. The 2011 reading will include
students, community members and faculty.
Wednesday, October 12
fiction writer Chris Mazza
12:30 p.m., Room 220 (Building 26)
Widely anthologized Southern California native Cris Mazza has published nine novels,
a collection of essays, and four collections of short fiction. Her writing is heralded
as an example of post-feminist, formalist or contemporary experimental fiction. She
is responsible, along with Jeffrey DeShell, for coining the now commonly used term,
"chick lit."
Mazza won the PEN / Nelson Algren Award for her novel How to Leave a Country. In addition,
she was recipient to an &NOW Award in 2009 for her story “Trickle-Down Timeline” (published
in The &NOW Awards: The Best Innovative Writing in 2009) and has participated in the
biennial &NOW Festival. Currently, she directs the Program for Writers at the University
of Illinois, Chicago.
Wednesday, October 19
Justin Hudnall performs Portrait of a Burning Man
3rd Annual Lester Bangs Memorial Reading
7:00 p.m., , Room 220 (Building 26)
Faculty, alumni writers, and guests read their original works of poetry, fiction and
creative nonfiction, while paying tribute to Grossmont College alumnus Lester A. Bangs,
who has come into recognition as “America’s Greatest Rock Critic.”
Considered one of the most influential voices in rock criticism, music critic Bangs is credited for coining the term "punk," and his subversive spirit and creativity continue to influence generations of writers.
Monday, October 24
through
Wednesday, November 2
Celebration of
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Information about events, times and venues, available on the GC Henrietta Lacks Resource Center.
Monday, November 14
author Lidia Yuknavitch
7:00 p.m., Room 220 (Building 26)
In addition to her book of criticism, Allegories of Violence (Routledge 2000), Lidia Yuknavitch has authored three collections of short fiction: Reel to Reel (FC2 2002), Liberty's Excess (FC2 2000), and Her Other Mouths (House of Bones Press 1997). Her writing has appeared in a variety of literary journals,
including Postmodern Culture, Fiction International, Another Chicago Magazine, Zyzzyva, Critical
Matrix, Other Voices, and has been anthologized in RePresenting Bisexualities (NYU Press 1996) and Third Wave Agenda (University of Minnesota Press 1997).
Having served as co-editor of Northwest Edge: Deviant Fictions and as editor of Two Girls' Review, Yuknavitch now teaches fiction writing and literature in Oregon.
Tuesday, December 6
New Voices: A Student Reading
7:00 p.m., Room 220 (Building 26)
New Voices: A Student Reading, features standout students from the Grossmont College
Creative Writing Program's current semester of courses, reading their original short
fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, novel excerpts, drama, and mixed media literary
works. Refreshments and desserts, made possible by a generous grant from WACC (World
Arts and Cultures Committee).
Student readers include
Carolyn Budd
Brady Cascio
Marianne S. Johnson
Erica Blunt
Tamaria del Rio
Timothy B. Dickinson
Lucy Palmer-Richeson
Kateri White
Cass Lynch
Shannon Wasser
Shonna Gillis
Corey Hadaway
Alex J. Wooton