Morgan Fellows Present Readings

Antioch College Announces “Fireside Readings” in the Coretta Scott King Center

Eight readings with established and emerging authors - Sales of books at the first reading on Feb. 6 will support Haitian Earthquake Relief.

Antioch College Morgan Fellows Anne Bohlen and Jean Gregorek are sponsoring a series of readings by established and emerging multi-ethnic writers at the College's Coretta
Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom. These relaxed readings will be held by the fireplace at the Center on Sunday afternoons in February and March.

The eight featured creative writers – fiction writers, poets and memoirists – offer a variety of voices and fresh perspectives on life in contemporary North America. Two of the authors are on the forefront of the vibrant new school of Haitian writing in English, exploring both Haitian and Haitian immigrant experience, while two authors work within the expansive and rapidly-growing tradition of Latino literature in the United States. All of the visiting writers are relatively young – three of the creative writers are currently graduate students at the University of Cincinnati, while two have just completed MFA's.

The series begins with the celebrated Haitian novelist and literary critic Dr. Myriam Chancy, who will read recent fiction. Her novels will be available for sale at the event, and the proceeds from Chancy's book sales will be donated to Haitian Earthquake Relief.

List of Events:

Sunday, February 6 – Myriam Chancy
2 p.m., The Coretta Scott King Center, Antioch College
Haitian-Canadian writer Myriam Chancy reads from her recent novels: The Loneliness of Angels (2010), The Scorpion’s Claw (2005), and Spirit of Haiti (2003). Also an influential feminist literary critic (Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women; Searching for Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile), Professor Chancy teaches Caribbean literature, African Diaspora studies, and creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. Her books will be available for purchase with proceeds donated to Haitian Earthquake Relief.

Sunday, February 27 – Gariot Louima and Tanya Jarrett
2 p.m., The Coretta Scott King Center, Antioch College
Gariot Louima, a fiction writer, former journalist and director of communications at Antioch College, will read recent short fiction; T.J. Jarrett will read poetry. Louima's stories have appeared in The Caribbean Writer and Carte Blanche, and are forthcoming in the anthology The Haiti I Knew, The Haiti I Know, The Haiti I Want to Know. He was a finalist for the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers. T.J. Jarrett is a writer and poet whose recent work has been published or is forthcoming in the African American Review, the Boston Review, Calaloo, Linebreak, and Third Coast. Her manuscript, "The Moon Looks Down and Laughs," was a finalist for the Tampa Review Poetry Prize.

Sunday, February 20 -- Rafael Torch
2 p.m., The Coretta Scott King Center, Antioch College
Writer, high school teacher, and Antioch alumnus Rafael Torch (‘02) will read from his creative nonfiction. Torch's work has been published in The Antioch Review, the Indiana Review, and the North American Review, among other places, and his MA thesis from the University of Chicago, The Garcia Boy: A Memoir, received numerous awards, including the Catherine Ham Memorial Award for Excellence in graduate work.

Sunday March 6 – Rachel Steiger-Meister, Kathy Zlabek and Michelle Burke
2 p.m., The Coretta Scott King Center, Antioch College
Steiger-Meister, Zlabek, and Burke are young creative writers and doctoral candidates at the University of Cincinnati. Rachel Steiger-Meister, a native of Yellow Springs, is the recipient of awards for excellence in scholarship and creative writing from Brown and Wright State Universities. Steiger-Meister has read her fiction at literary events in Boston, Providence, and Pittsburgh. Katherine Zlabek's poetry and short stories have appeared in The Madison Review, The Oxford Magazine, SAGA, and the anthology World Lives, Prairie Living (2005). Zlabek received the Frostic Fiction Award at Western Michigan University. Michelle Y. Burke is a scholar and poet currently pursuing her doctorate in English Literature. Her poems have appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, Hotel Amerika, Lake Effect, the
New Orleans Review, and Yemassee. Her chapbook, Horse Loquela, was published by the Alabama School of Fine Arts (2008).

Sunday, March 20 – Manuel Martinez
2 p.m., The Coretta Scott King Center, Antioch College
Manuel Martinez will read from his critically-acclaimed recent fiction. Professor Martinez teaches contemporary U.S. and Chicano literature at the Ohio State University, and has authored one book of literary criticism, Countering the Counterculture: Rereading Postwar American Dissent, and three novels: Crossing (1998) Drift (2003) and Day of the Dead (2009). His work has also appeared in the anthologies Hecho en Tejas and Latinos in Lotusland.