Major Author Reading Series Concludes with Poet Erica Dawson on Thursday, Nov. 13
Author of Big-Eyed Afraid and The Small Blades Hurt to wrap up the fall M.A.R.S. lecture series.
Poet Erica Dawson will conclude the Major Author Reading Series (M.A.R.S.) at Manhattan College on Thursday, Nov. 13 at 6:30 p.m. Dawson is the author of two collections of poetry including The Small Blades Hurt (2014) and Big-Eyed Afraid (2007).
Small Blades Hurt was released earlier this year and the new collection picks up where Dawson’s debut collection, Big-Eyed Afraid, ended. The poems capture Dawson’s move from her home state of Maryland to the South, to the Midwest and back.
In addition, Dawson’s poetry has appeared in Barrow Street, Birmingham Poetry Review, Blackbird, Literary Imagination, Unsplendid, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals. Her work is also featured in the following anthologies: Best American Poetry 2008 and 2012, American Society: What Poets See, Living in Storms: Contemporary Poetry and the Moods of Manic-Depression, and The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets.
Author of Nothing by Design, Mary Jo Salter calls Erica Dawson, “a poet of verve and nuance, of high learning and pop culture, of a classical music she seems to have invented herself.”
Dawson’s reviews have been featured in The Florida Review, and she currently writes a freelance column, “Dark and Sinful,” for Creative Loafing Tampa. She is also the poetry editor for the Tampa Review, is one of the editors of Mead: The Magazine of Literature and Libations, and sits on the advisory board for 32 Poems.
As an assistant professor at The University of Tampa, Dawson teaches English and writing to undergraduates and creative writing in the MFA Low-Residency program. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Fine Arts from The Ohio State University, and a doctorate from the University of Cincinnati.
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.
The last event of the fall semester is free, open to the public, and will be held in Hayden Hall, room 100. M.A.R.S. is co-sponsored by the College’s English department and the School of Arts, in cooperation with the Women and Gender Studies program.
For more information about M.A.R.S., please contact Adam Koehler, associate professor of English, at (718) 862-7546 or adam.koehler@manhattan.edu, or Dominika Wrozynski, assistant professor of English, at (718) 862-7921 or dominika.wrozynski@manhattan.edu.