Author, Poet and Playwright Kevin Killian to Read for Visiting Writers Series

Author, poet and playwright Kevin Killian will deliver a free, public reading on Thursday, Feb. 21 at 8 p.m. in Old Chapel as part of the MFA for Poets and Writers Visiting Writers Series.

Killian, one of the original “New Narrative” writers, has written the novels “Shy,” “Arctic Summer,” and “Spreadeagle,” a book of memoirs and three books of stories. He has also written four books of poetry, most recently “Tony Greene Era,” published by Wonder Books. For the San Francisco Poets Theater Killian has written 45 plays, and the anthology he compiled with David Brazil, “The Kenning Anthology of Poets Theater 1945-1985,” has become the standard book on the subject.

Recent projects include “Tagged,” Killian’s nude photographs of poets, artists, writers, filmmakers and intellectuals and, with Dodie Bellamy, “Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative Writing 1977-1997.” In late 2018 he published “Fascination: Memoirs” and “Stage Fright.” He teaches writing to MFA students at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

Celebrating its fifty-fourth year, the nationally renowned Visiting Writers Series at UMass Amherst presents emerging and established writers of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. The Series is sponsored by the MFA for Poets and Writers and the Juniper Initiative and made possible by support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the University of Massachusetts Arts Council and the English department.