LANCASTER, Pa. - Five critically acclaimed writers will gather at Franklin & Marshall April 11-13 for the college’s sixth annual Emerging Writers Festival. The festival, which will showcase the talents of Cynthia Cruz, Jay Kirk, Lauren Groff, Kevin Moffett, and Amaud Jamaul Johnson through readings and craft classes, is free and open to the public.
Cynthia Cruz was raised in Germany and California. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Paris Review, The Boston Review, Grand Street, Chel-sea, and Pleiades, among others. She has received fellowships to Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony and teaches poetry in New York City schools as part of Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Jay Kirk writes fiction and creative nonfiction. In a recent story for Harper's Magazine, titled "Aslan Resurrected," Kirk chronicles a group of self-proclaimed "true believers"called the Eastern Puma Research Network as he attempts to discover if this extinct animal exists outside the imagination of the club and others like them. In addition to appearing in Harper's, his writing has been included in, Best American Crime Writing 2004, Chicago Reader, The New York Times Magazine, Philadelphia City Paper and on Nerve.com. He has given readings at the Chestnut Hill Library, The Painted Bride Quarterly Benefit, Border's Books and Music, and at "Live at the Writers House: 2-1-5 Festival," which was broadcast on WXPN, all in Philadelphia. He was an instructor at the Ninth Annual Writers Conference at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Kirk received his B.F.A. from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. Lauren Groff is a native of Cooperstown, N.Y., and has a degree from Amherst College and an MFA in fiction from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Atlantic Monthly, Hobart, Five Points, The Beloit Fiction Journal, and the Best New American Voices 2008, edited by Richard Bausch. She is the Axton Fellow in Fiction at the University of Louisville, and her novel, "The Monsters of Templeton," will be published in the spring of 2008 by Voice, an imprint of Hyperion. Kevin Moffett was born and raised in Daytona Beach, Florida. Until recently, he edited and wrote for Funworld, the official magazine of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. He interviewed Dolly Parton and Pele, traveled to haunted cornfields in Ohio and near-deserted theme parks in Spain, and rode an unhealthy number of roller coasters. He wrote at length about this for The Believer. His stories have received the Nelson Algren Award and the Pushcart Prize, and have appeared in McSweeney's, Tin House, StoryQuarterly, the Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere. “Tattooizm,” originally published in Tin House, is forthcoming in The Best American Short Stories 2006. His first collection of stories, Permanent Visitors, won the Iowa Short Fiction Award, judged by George Saunders, and will be published in October.
He lives with his wife and young son in Gettysburg, Pa., where is spending 2006-07 as the Emerging Writer Lecturer at Gettysburg College. Amaud Jamaul Johnson was born and raised in Compton, Calif., and educated at Howard University and Cornell University. He was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford, and a Cave Canem Fellow. His collection, Red Summer, won the 2005 Dorset Prize from Tupelo Press and was published by Tupelo in spring 2006. Johnson is an assistant professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Emerging Writers Festival Wednesday April 11
Reading
Kevin Moffett, Cynthia Cruz
8:30 p.m., Miller Recital Hall, Old Main Post-reading reception
9:45 p.m., Philadelphia Alumni Writers House, 633 College Avenue Thursday, April 12
Craft workshops
Non-fiction with Jay Kirk, 10-11 a.m.
Poetry with Amaud Jamaul Johnson, 11 a.m.-noon p.m.
Dodge Reading Room, Philadelphia Alumni Writers House, 633 College Avenue Lunch with writers
12:15, Philadelphia Alumni Writers House, 633 College Avenue Reading
Jay Kirk, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Lauren Groff
8:30 p.m., Miller Recital Hall, Old Main Post-reading reception
9:45 p.m., Philadelphia Alumni Writers House, 633 College Avenue Friday, April 13
Craft workshops
Fiction with Lauren Groff, 10-11 a.m.
Dodge Reading Room, Philadelphia Alumni Writers House, 633 College Avenue Lunch with writers
12:15 p.m., Philadelphia Alumni Writers House, 633 College Avenue Craft workshops
Poetry with Cynthia Cruz, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Fiction with Kevin Moffett, 2:30-3:30 p.m.
Dodge Reading Room, Philadelphia Alumni Writers House, 633 College Avenue Farewell barbeque
4:30 p.m., Philadelphia Alumni Writers House, 633 College Avenue These events, sponsored by the Franklin & Marshall English department and the Philadelphia Alumni Writers House, are free and open to the public. The Emerging Writers Festival is supported by the Hausman fund, which is offered under the auspices of the Richard and Edna Hausman Visiting Writers Series. The purpose of the series is to bring to campus distinguished authors and writers to present public readings, to hold informal discussions with students and to participate in classrooms as an informed lecturer and critic. For more information, please contact ewf@fandm.edu
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