All readings are in Memorial Hall at 8 p.m. (unless otherwise noted), and are free, wheelchair accessible, and open to the public.
Sponsored by the MFA Program for Poets and Writers and Juniper Initiative. Made possible by support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, University of Massachusetts Arts Council, UMass Amherst Alumni Associaion, Vice Provost of Research & Engagement, College of Humanities & Fine Arts, and English Department.
 Dara Wier is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including Selected Poems (Wave Books, 2009), encompassing work from 1977 through 2006, Remnants of Hannah (Wave Books, 2006), Reverse Rapture (Verse Press, 2005), Hat On a Pond (Verse Press, 2002), and Voyages in English (Carnegie Mellon, 2001). Also among her works are the limited editions (X In Fix) in Rain Taxi's Brainstorm Series, Fly on the Wall (Oat City Press), and The Lost Epic of Arthur Davidson Ficke , co-written with James Tate (Waiting for Godot Books). Her awards include the Poetry Center Book of the Year Award, a Pushcart Prize and the American Poetry Review's Jerome Shestack Prize. Her poetry has been supported by fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the American Poetry Review. In 2005 she held the Rubin Distinguished Chair at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. Her editing work includes publishing limited edition chapbooks and broadsides with Factory Hollow Press, North Amherst, Massachusetts, a small independent press she co-edits with Emily Pettit and Guy Pettit. Along with James Haug and James Tate she edits the University of Massachusetts Press Juniper Series for poetry. About Reverse Rapture , John Ashbery wrote: “It may not be for the faint of heart—most intense experiences aren't—but those who stay with it will find themselves face to face with a world whose eerily sharp focus suggests recent satellite photographs of Mars. And they will never be the same again.”
 Sherman Alexie is the author of twenty books of poetry and fiction including The Business of Fancydancing (poetry, 1991; not to be confused with the film of the same name, 2002, which Alexie wrote and directed), The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (short stories, 1993), Reservation Blues (novel, 1995), Smoke Signals (screenplay, 1998) Ten Little Indians (stories, 2003). Flight (novel, 2007) and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (young adult novel, 2007). Face (Hanging Loose Press, 2009) was SPD's top selling poetry book from March to June 2009. In October, Grove/Atlantic will publish his latest book, War Dances , a collection of stories. His many honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, The New York Times Book Review Notable Book (for The Business of Fancydancing and Indian Killer ), a PEN/Hemingway Award (Best First Book of Fiction Citation Winner for The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven ), the National Book Award and the Peter Pan Award (both for the The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian ), and the Stranger Genius Award. Alexie lives in Seattle, WA, with his wife and two sons.  Rebecca Wolff is the author of three books of poems: The King (W. W. Norton, 2009), Figment (W.W. Norton, 2004) and Manderley (University of Illinois Press, 2001), selected for the National Poetry Series by Robert Pinsky. For Figment , she won the Barnard Women Poets Prize. In 1998, Wolff launched Fence , with a crew of founding coeditors including Caroline Crumpacker, Jonathan Lethem, Frances Richard, and Matthew Rohrer. The next nine years of Wolff's life were devoted to publishing the journal, and also to Fence Books, launched in 2001. In 2007, Fence and Fence Books found sponsorship at the University at Albany, in partnership with the New York State Writers Institute , of which Wolff is now a Program Fellow. She published her first poem in Seventeen Magazine , at the age of 15, and finished her undergraduate degree at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, attaining a Bachelors Degree with a Special Concentration in Poetry and Self-Consciousness in 1991.
 Lisa Olstein is the author of Lost Alphabet (Copper Canyon Press, 2009) and Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (Copper Canyon Press, 2006), winner of the Hayden Carruth Award. Cold Satellite, an album of songs based on her poems and lyrics is forthcoming from singer-songwriter Jeffrey Foucault. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Centrum. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals including American Letter & Commentary, The Iowa Review, Forklift Ohio, and jubilat.
 Mary Gaitskill is the author of five books of fiction, most recently, Don't Cry ( stories, 2009). "Secretary," a story from her first collection, Bad Behavior (1988), was made into the film of that name. Her first novel, Two Girls, Fat and Thin appeared in 1991. Because They Wanted To (stories, 1997), was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award. Her most recent novel, Veronica (2005), was a National Book Award nominee, as well as a National Book Critics Circle finalist for that year. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories (1993 and 2006), and The O. Henry Prize Stories (1998). The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she teaches creative writing at Syracuse University.
 Charles Simic , born in Belgrade in 1938, was the 15th Poet Laureate. Renowned also as an essayist and translator, his most recent books include Dark Things , a translation of Novica Tadic's poems, and Monster Loves His Labyrinth: Notebooks . Among his 30 books of poetry, Charon's Cosmology (1977) was nominated for the National Book Award, and Classic Ballroom Dances (1980), won the 1980 di Castagnola Award and the Harriet Monroe Poetry Award. In 1990 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The World Doesn't End. Walking the Black Cat (1996) was nominated for the National Book Award, Jackstraws (1999) was a New York Times Notable Book, and Selected Poems: 1963-2003 was the winner of the 2005 International Griffin Poetry Prize. One of two poets to receive both the Edgar Allan Poe and the Wallace Stevens Award, Simic twice won the PEN Translation Prize, along with awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1983 he received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. He has taught writing at the University of New Hampshire since 1974.
 Sam Lipsyte is the author of one collection of short stories, Venus Drive, (2000) and two novels, The Subject Steve (2002) and Home Land (2005). Venus Drive was named one of the top twenty-five books of the year by the Voice Literary Supplement, Home Land was awarded the first annual Believer Book Award and listed among the New York Times Notable Books of 2005, and he won a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship. His latest novel, The Ask , will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2010. His work has also appeared in NOON, Open City, The Quarterly, The New York Times Book Review, Slate, Mother Jones, Playboy, Nerve, Spin and the Minus Times, among many others. Originally from New Jersey, he currently lives in Manhattan and teaches fiction at Columbia University.
Visiting Writing Lecture Series: Spring 2009
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