Major Author Reading Series Continues This Fall

Manhattan College to host three notable authors during the fall semester.

Three distinguished authors will participate in Manhattan College’s biannual Major Author Reading Series (M.A.R.S.) during the fall semester, starting on Thursday, Oct. 22 with poet Martín Espada.

Espada has published more than 15 books and has been compared to Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda. His forthcoming collection of poems, Vivas to Those Who Have Failed, will debut in 2016. Espada’s other books of poems include The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006), Alabanza (2003), A Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen (2000), Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996) and City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (1993).

Poet Joanna Klink will then visit campus on Thursday, Nov. 12. The author of four books of poetry, They Are Sleeping (2000), Circadian (2007), Raptus (2010) and Excerpts from a Secret Prophecy (2015), her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, most recently The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century Poetry and Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poets for the Next Generation.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Adam Johnson will conclude this semester’s series on Thursday, Nov. 19. Johnson received a 2013 Pulitzer Prize award for his novel The Orphan Master’s Son. He has also written several books, including Fortune Smiles, a short-story collection, and he is the winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Designed to engage and expose students to contemporary literature, M.A.R.S. has brought several notable writers to campus for readings and book signings since its inception in 2010. A few of the writers include: The New York Times Sunday Book Review Editors’ Choice winners Josh Weil and Honor Moore, Pulitzer Prize winners Junot Diaz, Jennifer Egan and Claudia Emerson; and National Book Award finalist Joshua Ferris.

All of the events are free, open to the public, and will be held in Hayden Hall, room 100, starting at 6:30 p.m. M.A.R.S. is co-sponsored by the College’s English department and the School of Liberal Arts.

For more information about M.A.R.S., please contact Dominika Wrozynski, Ph.D., assistant professor of English, at (718) 862-7921 or dominika.wrozynski@manhattan.edu or Adam Koehler, Ph.D., associate professor of English, at (718) 862-7546 or adam.koehler@manhattan.edu.

MC Staff