September 20 — JOHN ASHBERY
October 11 — JAMES SALTER
October 30 — ALICE OSWALD, University Club November 1 — JUNOT DIAZ (Troy Lecture, Bowker Auditorium, 4:30 PM)
November 15 — NOY HOLLAND, Memorial Hall
For nearly fifty years, the Visiting Writers Series has brought outstanding renowned and emerging poets and writers to the university campus for public readings of new work. All readings are on Thursdays at 8 p.m. in Memorial Hall except where noted. All are free and open to the public. Information about past readers can be found at the Visiting Writers Series website:http://www.umass.edu/english/MFA_VWS_Spring2012.htm
The Visiting Writers Series is sponsored by the MFA Program for Poets and Writers and the Juniper Initiative, and made possible by support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the University of Massachusetts Arts Council, the Vice Provost of Research & Engagement, the College of Humanities & Fine Arts, and the English Department.
John Ashbery is the author of more than twenty books of poetry, most
recently Planisphere, A Worldly Country, and Where Shall I Wander. He
has won nearly every major American award for poetry, including the
National Book Award Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American
Letters, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the
National Book Award.
Noy Holland is the author of The Spectacle of the Body, What Begins with
Bird, and Swim for the Little One First. She is the recipient of
fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts
Cultural Council, the University of Florida, and the Bread Loaf Writers
Conference.
James Salter is author of twelve books, including the novels A Sport and
a Pastime, Light Years, and the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning collection
Dusk and Other Stories. His stories have appeared in O. Henry
collections and in the Best American Short Stories. He was elected to
The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2000 and received The Paris
Review's Hadada Prize in 2011.
Junot Díaz is the author of the short-story collection Drown, as well as the critically-acclaimed novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,
which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critics
Circle Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction. He is
the fiction editor at The Boston Review.
Alice Oswald trained as a classicist and was the recipient of an Eric
Gregory Award. She has been awarded the Froward Poetry Prize in 1996 and
the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize in 2002 for her poetry collections The Thing
in the Gap-Stone Stile and Dart, respectively. Her latest book is
Memorial: An Excavation of the Illiad.
John Ashbery is the author of more than twenty books of poetry, most
recently Planisphere, A Worldly Country, and Where Shall I Wander. He
has won nearly every major American award for poetry, including the
National Book Award Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American
Letters, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the
National Book Award.
Noy Holland is the author of The Spectacle of the Body, What Begins with
Bird, and Swim for the Little One First. She is the recipient of
fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts
Cultural Council, the University of Florida, and the Bread Loaf Writers
Conference.
James Salter is author of twelve books, including the novels A Sport and
a Pastime, Light Years, and the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning collection
Dusk and Other Stories. His stories have appeared in O. Henry
collections and in the Best American Short Stories. He was elected to
The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2000 and received The Paris
Review's Hadada Prize in 2011.
Junot Díaz is the author of the short-story collection Drown, as well as the critically-acclaimed novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,
which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critics
Circle Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction. He is
the fiction editor at The Boston Review.
Alice Oswald trained as a classicist and was the recipient of an Eric