Major Author Reading Series Continues as Three Acclaimed Writers Visit Campus

Manhattan College’s Major Author Reading Series (M.A.R.S.) will continue during the spring semester, giving students the chance to meet distinguished authors and participate in readings and book signings on campus.

On Thursday, Feb. 25 at 6:30 p.m., Brandy Wilson, Ph.D., will visit campus. Author of The Palace Blues: A Novel, Wilson was a 2015 Lambda Literary Award finalist in lesbian fiction, an Astraea Emerging Lesbian Writers Fund finalist, a Lambda Literary Retreat Emerging LGBT Voices Fellow in fiction and a recipient of three Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference scholarships. She teaches writing, literature, and Gender and Women’s studies at the University of Memphis. Wilson will read from The Palace Blues, which tells the story of Frankie, a white Texas tomboy visiting her aunt and uncle in Chicago where she meets and falls for Jean Bailey, an African American, cross-dressing, blues singer.

On Thursday, March 31 at 6:30 p.m., the program welcomes Sam Lipsyte, the author of the short story collections Venus Drive and The Fun Parts and the novels The Subject Steve, Homeland and The Ask. Author Jonathan Ames says that Lipsyte’s short stories “come at you like a fist, they make you wince, they make you look away, and then they make you look back.” Lipsyte’s works have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Tin House, Open City, n+1, McSweeney’s and The New York Times Book Review, among others. In 2004, his novel Homeland won the inaugural “Believer Book Award” from The Believer and in 2008, he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. He teaches fiction at Columbia University.

On Thursday, April 28 at 6:30 p.m., poet Jennifer Perrine will share her works on campus. Perrine won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry for No Confession, No Mass in 2015, received the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize for In the Human Zoo, and won the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry for The Body Is No Machine. Perrine recently completed a novel, Safekeeping, about a teenage girl who discovers her family’s secret and is forced to decide whether to protect her loved ones or to save herself. Since 2006, she has taught at Drake University, where she also directs the Women’s and Gender Studies program. Perrine also facilitates writing workshops for high school students, incarcerated people, and veterans and their families.

All events are free of charge, open to the general public and will take place in Hayden 100 on campus. The Major Author Reading Series is sponsored by the School of Liberal Arts and the English department. For more information, contact Dominika Wrozynski, Ph.D., assistant professor of English, at dominika.wrozynski@manhattan.edu or (718) 862-7921, or Adam Koehler, associate professor of English, at adam.koehler@manhattan.edu or (718) 862-7546.