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Upcoming Fall Events

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The following is a guest post by Anne Holmes, a new staff member in the Library’s Poetry and Literature Center.

We’re thrilled to invite you, dear PLC community, to join us for our 2016–2017 event season! This fall is jam-packed with a diverse program roster as we reignite our tried-and-true annual series and feature several special events throughout the next few months. Here’s a peek into what we’re up to from September to December:

This coming Monday, September 19, we kick off the season with a momentous reading by Korean poet Ko Un—a perennial frontrunner for the Nobel Prize in Literature—along with his translator, Brother Anthony, as part of our International Literature series. Later this month, we bring back The Life of a Poet—now in its fourth year!—with our friend Terrance Hayes, winner of the 2010 National Book Award for Poetry, in conversation with Ron Charles of The Washington Post. Not a shabby way to launch a season, right?

October brings much cooler weather, we hope (come on, DC), along with a month of special events. We’re elated to host a spotlight on Asian American Literature Today with dazzling poets Janine Joseph and Aimee Nezhukumatathil, who will read and discuss their work with Kundiman Advisory Board Co-Chair Jennifer Chang; and a discussion on Poetry, Publishing and Race with poets/editors-extraordinaire Cathy Park Hong (New Republic), Evie Shockley (Feminist Studies), Carmen Giménez Smith (Puerto del Sol/Noemi Press), and Don Share (Poetry Magazine). Our own Rob Casper, head of the PLC, will moderate the latter event. We finish the month with Law & Literature, featuring lawyer and poet Monica Youn, whose latest collection, Blackacre—longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry—just hit our (and hopefully your) shelves.

In November, we invite you to come back for two series you already know and love. The International Writing Program Spotlight, now in its third year, welcomes illustrious program residents Khaled Alkhamissi (Egypt), Ukamaka Olisakwe (Nigeria), Yaroslava Pulinovich (Russia), and Zhou Jianing (China). As an extension of the IWP—in partnership with the University of Iowa and the State Department—we round out the month with two Conversations with African Poets and Writers events, a series now in its fifth year. Shenaz Patel, born in Mauritius, is the writer of numerous novels, stories, and plays in both French and Mauritian Creole; her participation is unique, since she will be the first Mauritian writer to be featured in the Conversations with African Poets and Writers series. In late November, we welcome the prolific Kwame Dawes from Ghana—an Emmy award-winning poet, actor, editor, critic—as the second featured writer in this fall’s IWP/CWAPW programming.

We bookend our fall event season with the International Literature series; in early December, William Egginton—Andrew W. Mellon Professor at Johns Hopkins University—discusses his new book on Miguel de Cervantes, The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World, to close the season with a flourish.

We at the PLC are overjoyed to bring you another season of stunning events, which we couldn’t possibly do without our many generous co-sponsors and partners. Stay tuned for information about our spring season. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing your shining faces at as many fall events as you can handle!