Center for Literary Arts at SJSU

MAJOR AUTHORS SERIES 2008-09

All events are free, open to the public, and wheelchair accessible.

Spring 2009


	Mark Doty Tuesday & Wednesday, February 24 & 25 2008 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER! Mark Doty's Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. His eight books of poems include School of the Arts, Source, and My Alexandria. He has also published four volumes of nonfiction prose: Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, Heaven's Coast, Firebird and Dog Years, which was a New York Times bestseller in 2007. Tuesday, 2/24, 3 pm: Mt. Pleasant High School 7 pm: Reading and book-signing, Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 2nd floor rooms 225-229 Wednesday, 2/25, 1:30 pm: Conversation with author and partner Paul Lisicky, Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 2nd floor rooms 225-229

	Sandra Gilbert Wednesday, April 15 Poet and author of Kissing the Bread: New & Selected Poems, 1969-1999; Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies; Wrongful Death: A Memoir. 1:30: Conversation, Q&A, and book-signing. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 2nd floor rooms 225-229 7:30: Reading and book-signing. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 2nd floor rooms 225-229 TBD: Mt. Pleasant High School
	Lurie Distinguished Professor The Lurie Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing, established through the generosity of Connie and Robert Lurie, has brought a distinguished author to teach at SJSU for one semester each year. .


Fall 2008

	Junot Diaz Saturday, September 20 Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao In collaboration with MACLA 7:00 pm: SJSU University Theatre
	The Martha Heasley Cox Lecture Series Through a generous donation from Martha Heasley Cox, this annual Lecture was established. Past lecturers include Dorothy Allison, Gore Vidal, and Kirin Desai.

	Ana Castillo Tuesday & Wednesday, October 14 & 15 The Margaret and Jim Jimenez Lecture Award-winning author, poet, memoirist of The Guardians, Watercolor Women/opaque Men: A Novel in Verse, Loverboys, and My Father Was a Toltec: and Selected Poems. Tuesday, 10/14 7 pm: Reading and book-signing, Engineering Auditorium Room 189 Wednesday, 10/15 1:30 pm: Conversation, Q&A, and book-signing. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 2nd floor rooms 225-229 3:00 pm: Mt. Pleasant High School
	Margaret and Jim Jimenez Lecture Series Salman Rushdie is the third of four authors in the Margaret and Jim Jimenez Lecture Series, established by their generous gift. Past lectures include Azar Nafisi and Khaled Hosseini.

	Terrence McNally Wednesday, November 19 The Martha Heasley Cox Lecture Award-winning playwright of Deuce, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ragtime, Dead Man Walking. 1:30: Conversation, Q&A, book-signing SJSU University Theatre 3:00: Mt. Pleasant High School 7:30: Lecture, Q&A, book-signing, SJSU University Theatre

Aimee Bender	Tuesday , March 3, 2009 Aimee Bender is the author of two short story collections, Willful Creatures and The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, and a novel, An Invisible Sign of My Own. Her fiction has appeared in publications including Granta, GQ, Harper's, Tin House, McSweeney's and The Paris Review. 3 PM: Mt. Pleasant High School 7 PM: Reading, Q&A, and book-signing. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 2nd floor rooms 225-229

Hayan Charara Fady Joudah	Wednesday, March 18, 2009 Hayan Charara is the author of two collections of poetry, The Sadness of Others and The Alchemist’s Diary, and the editor of Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. Born in Detroit, Michigan, to immigrant parents, he currently lives in Texas. Fady Joudah is the author of the poetry collection The Earth in the Attic, winner of the 2007 Yale Younger Poets Award, and translator of Mahmoud Darwish’s The Butterfly’s Burden (Copper Canyon Press). A member of Doctors Without Borders since 2001, Joudah lives in Houston, Texas, where he is an emergency-room physician at Houston's Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center. In Collaboration with Poetry Center San Jose 7 PM: Reading, Q&A, and book-signing. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 2nd floor rooms 225-229

Thaddeus Rutkowski Marc Pinate	Tuesday, April 7, 2009 Thaddeus Rutkowski is the author of the novels Tetched (Behler Publications) and Roughhouse (Kaya Press). His stories have appeared in publications including American Letters and Commentary, CutBank, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Laurel Review and Pleiades. He is a one-time winner of the Poetry Versus Comedy slam at the Bowery Poetry Club, the Syracuse poetry slam, and the Nuyorican Poets Café Friday slam. Marc is a SJSU Professor in Theatre Arts and national winner of the 1999 poetry slam. 1:30 PM: Poetry Slam! The Hal Todd Theatre at Hugh Gillis Hall