Highly-acclaimed authors visit for 2019 reading series

The Fall 2019 Barbara & David Zalaznick Reading Series features award-winning authors reading from their work. Each reading is followed by a catered reception and book signing; books will be available for purchase courtesy of Buffalo Street Books. The series is sponsored by Cornell’s Creative Writing Program and all events are free and open to the public.

Acclaimed Chinese American poet and National Book Award finalist Jenny Xie will premiere the Fall series on Sept. 19 at 4:30p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, 132 Goldwin Smith Hall. Xie was born in Hefei, China, and raised in New Jersey. She is the author of "Eye Level," which was selected by Juan Felipe Herrera for the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets. Eye Level also received the Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University, was named a finalist for the National Book Award and a PEN Open Book Award, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her chapbook, "Nowhere to Arrive," won the Drinking Gourd Prize. Xie holds degrees from Princeton University and NYU, and has received grants and support from Kundiman, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and Poets & Writers. Her work appears in POETRY, The New York Times Magazine, and Tin House, among other publications. She has taught creative writing at NYU and Princeton University.

Poet and novelist Robert Morgan continues the series with the MorganFest Reading, part of a larger celebration of Morgan’s life and career, on Oct. 3 at 4:30p.m. in Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium, Klarman Hall. Paying tribute to Morgan will be three of his former students: poet Elizabeth Holmes, poet and nonfiction writer Lynn Powell, and author and artist Robert Schultz. Morgan is the author of 14 books of poetry and nine novels that draw on the rich history of Appalachia, including the bestseller "Gap Creek" and "Chasing the North Star." Most recently Morgan has turned to biography, on subjects ranging from Daniel Boone to Edgar Allan Poe. His work has been recognized with the James G. Hanes Poetry Prize by the Fellowship of Southern Writers, the Academy Award in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the History Award Medal from the DAR. Since 1971 he has taught at Cornell University, where he is now the Kappa Alpha Professor of English and much loved as a writer, poet, colleague, and mentor.

Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and women’s rights activist Desiree Cooper will close the series on Oct. 24 at 4:30p.m. in Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium, Klarman Hall. Cooper is a 2015 Kresge Artist Fellow, former attorney and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist. Her debut collection of flash fiction, "Know the Mother," has won numerous awards including 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award. Cooper’s fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in "The Best Small Fictions 2018," Callaloo, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hypertext Review, and "Best African American Fiction 2010," among other publications. In 2018, she wrote, produced and co-directed “The Choice,” a short film about reproductive rights that received the 2019 Berlin Flash Film Festival’s Outstanding Achievement Award and an Award of Merit from the Los Angeles Best Short Film Festival. Cooper was a founding board member of Cave Canem, a national residency for black poets.

Worried about parking? TCAT bus route 10 Commons-Cornell loop leaves Seneca Street station every 12 minutes on Thursday afternoons until 6:16p.m. and stops outside Klarman/Goldwin Smith Halls. After 6:16p.m., Route 10 runs every 24 minutes. Last trip from campus to downtown is at 7:28p.m. The cash fare for a single ride is $1.50.

For more information, visit english.cornell.edu/zalaznick, email creativewriting@cornell.edu or call 607-255-7847.