UT MFA Program Presents “Lectores” Speaker Series Jan. 4–11

UPDATE JAN. 3, 2018: Due to Winter Storm Grayson and the impact on travel conditions, the Lectores reading on Jan. 4 with United States Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith is postponed. The reading will be rescheduled in the near future.

The University of Tampa MFA in Creative Writing speaker series, “Lectores,” will feature 11 readings from a mix of award-winning visiting authors and UT’s world-renowned MFA faculty from Jan. 4–11.

The series begins on Thursday, Jan. 4, with a reading by United States Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, who is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Ordinary Light and three books of poetry. Her collection Life on Mars won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and was selected as a New York Times Notable Book.

The series continues on Friday, Jan. 5, with Sarah Manguso, the author of seven books including 300 Arguments, Ongoingness, The Guardians and The Two Kinds of Decay. Her work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize, and her books have been translated into Chinese, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

The series also features readings by Ada Limón, Skip Horack, John Capouya, Timmy Thomas, Angela Redmond-Theodore, Sandra Beasley, Alan Michael Parker, Mikhail Iossel and Jeff Parker.

All readings and events are free and open to the public, and all begin at 7:30 p.m. The full series follows:

Thursday, Jan. 4: Reading with United States Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith in the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery.
Friday, Jan. 5: Reading with seven-time published author Sarah Manguso in the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery.
Saturday, Jan. 6: Reading with poet Ada Limón, author of Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry and one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of the Year by The New York Times, in the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery.
Monday, Jan. 8: Reading with Skip Horack, author of the novel The Other Joseph and The Eden Hunter, which was a 2010 New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, in the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery.
Tuesday, Jan. 9: Reading by John Capouya, author of Florida Soul, with one of the artists featured in the book, Miami-based singer, songwriter and keyboardist Timmy Thomas, in the Trustee Board Room, located on the ninth floor of the Vaughn Center
Wednesday, Jan. 10: Readings by Angela Redmond-Theodore MFA ’16, this January’s featured Alumni Reader; Sandra Beasley, author of three books of poetry, most recently Count the Waves; and Alan Michael Parker, author of seven poetry collections, in the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery.
Thursday, Jan. 11: Readings by Mikhail Iossel and Jeff Parker, co-editors of the anthologies Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States and Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia, located in the Crescent Club.

The UT MFA in Creative Writing program works by bringing students for 10-day residencies in January and June, and then facilitating individual mentorship between students and writing faculty from a distance. Throughout each residency, Lectores speakers give a 45–50-minute evening reading, followed by a book-signing. The next morning, the author gives a 60–70-minute seminar, on a topic of their choice, for the program’s student body.

For more information, go to www.ut.edu/mfacw/lectores or call Lynne Bartis at (813) 257-3514.