Writers at the University Continues Feb. 19 with Amina Lolita Gautier

The 2012-2013 Writers at the University series at The University of Tampa continues Tuesday, Feb. 19, with Amina Lolita Gautier, winner of the 2011 Flannery O’Conner Award for Short Fiction for her short story collection At-Risk. Gautier will give a reading in the Plant Hall Music Room from 7–9 p.m.

Gautier has published more than 70 short stories in various journals. Her work has been reprinted in several anthologies, including Best African American Fiction in 2009 and 2010, and New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best in 2008. In addition to the Flannery O’Conner Award, she has received the William Richey Prize, the Jack Dyer Prize, the Danahy Fiction Prize, the Schlafly Microfiction Award and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Award.

Her critical work focuses on 19th century American authors such as Charles W. Chesnutt, Elleanor Eldridge, Benjamin Franklin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Walt Whitman. She is an assistant professor of English at DePaul University, where she teaches courses in creative writing and African-American literature.

The Writers at the University series will continue on Thursday, April 4, with a reading by poet Jennifer Key, winner of the University of Tampa Press Poetry Prize. Key is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. in the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery.

Both readings are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Erica Dawson at (813) 257-6311 or edawson@ut.edu.