prose

Lucille Clifton reads poems on many subjects, including family and illness, as well as a series of Rastafarian-inspired poems about the life of the Biblical figure Mary. In addition to poems, Clifton reads excerpts from Generations: A Memoir and her children's book Sonora Beautiful.

Tomas Tranströmer reads widely from his work; he also reads two poems by fellow Swedish poet Harry Martinson. Of note, Martinson received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1974, the year before this reading. Thirty-six years later, in 2011, Tranströmer himself was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The reading includes the performance of two poems in Swedish, and ends with a rich and extensive question and answer session.

Robert C.S. Downs gives his first public reading before joining the University of Arizona creative writing faculty for the fall semester. He reads from his first two novels, Going Gently (1973) and Peoples (1974), which was unpublished at the time of the reading.

John Williams reads from three novels: Butcher's Crossing (1978), Stoner (1965), and Augustus (1972).

Pete Fromm reads the story "The Fairest of Them All," which would later appear in his short story collection Dry Rain (1997). Set in Alaska, the story is narrated by a man whose twin sister comes to stay with him following a lost custody dispute over her children. This reading was given with Sandra Alcosser.

Stanley Elkin reads The State of the Art from his collection of short stories The Living End.

Jonathan Penner reads from Going Blind (1977) as well as work published in periodicals.

Elizabeth Evans reads excerpts from her third novel, Rowing in Eden.

This reading coincided with the release of Johnson's novel Nobody Move, the publication of the novel and the date of the reading being only a few days apart. During the question and answer session, Johnson reads a poem from Incognito Lounge, the book which earned him a National Poetry Series Award.

Juliana Spahr reads from The Connection of Everyone with Lungs (2005) and "Gentle Now, Don't Add to Heartache" as part of the Poetry Center's Fall 2009 sequence of themed readings, "Oh Earth, Wait for Me: Conversations about Art and Ecology." This reading was given alongside Jonathan Skinner.

Kazim Ali reads work in several genres, including excerpts from Orange Alert, a collection of essays; The Disappearance of Seth, a novel; and Bright Felon, a memoir; as well as published and new poems. He ends by performing a poem, "Queer Ishmael," composed on the spot. This reading was given alongside Ana Bozicevic as part of the Next Word in Poetry series.

Philip Schultz reads poems from several books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection The God of Loneliness (2010). He closes the reading with his first public performance of several new poems.

Sherman Alexie reads widely from his work and engages the audience with stories characterized by his signature humor.

Timothy Schaffert reads from The Coffins of Little Hope, published in 2011, and The Swan Gondola, which would be published in 2014.

A celebration of the fairy tale, featuring readings from authors included in My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (2010), an anthology of new fairy tales edited by Kate Bernheimer.

Franz Wright discusses a wide range of topics, including Rilke, translation, and the writing life.

Cal Bedient reads poetry appearing in Candy Necklace (1997), The Violence of the Morning (2002), and Days of Unwilling (2008). Poems that went on to appear in the latter collection differ from their published versions.

Ofelia Zepeda reads primarily from her collections Ocean Power (1995) and Where Clouds are Formed (2008). She also reads from an unpublished essay and from her chapbook Jewed 'I-Hoi/Earth Movements (1997).

John D'Agata reads from his book About a Mountain (2010).

Danielle Vogel reads from lyric essays describing the genesis of her ceramic architecture exhibit Narrative Nests, presented at the Poetry Center's May 2012 Poetry Off the Page Symposium. One of these essays appears in Narrative & Nest: Pre-Natal Architectures & Narrative Rituals (2012).

Monica Drake reads a new short story and an excerpt from Clown Girl (2006) as part of the University of Arizona Prose Series.

John T. Price reads from two memoirs: Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships (2008) and Daddy Long Legs: The Natural Education of a Father (2013).

In this reading, originally given with Poetry Center Summer Resident Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, Naomi Benaron reads from her Bellwether Prize-winning novel Running the Rift (2012).

Bharati Mukherjee reads from her novel Desirable Daughters (2002); she also reads an unpublished short story. This reading was originally given with Clark Blaise.

Clark Blaise reads his short stories "A Saint" from If I Were Me: A Novel (1997) and "Meditations on Starch," which was first published in the journal Salmagundi in 1988 and later collected in World Body (2006). This reading was originally given with Bharati Mukherjee.

Fenton Johnson reads excerpts from Scissors, Paper, Rock: A Novel (1993), Geography of the Heart: A Memoir (1997) and "Beyond Belief: A Skeptic Searches for an American Faith" (1998).

Kate Bernheimer reads from a work in progress called Happy Hour that will be published in Unstuck. This reading was originally given with Cynthia Hogue.

Shannon Cain reads a story from her collection The Necessity of Certain Behaviors (2011) as part of the University of Arizona Prose Series. This reading was originally given with Lydia Millet.

Lydia Millet reads from her novel Magnificence (2012) as part of the University of Arizona Prose Series. This reading was originally given with Shannon Cain.

Sandra Cisneros reads short stories from The House on Mango Street (1984) and Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991) and poetry from My Wicked Wicked Ways (1987).

In this reading, originally given with Peter Rock, David Foster Wallace reads from his collection Oblivion: Stories (2004).

In this reading, originally given with Beth Alvarado, Aurelie Sheehan shares excerpts from the novel History Lessons for Girls (2006), as well as a work in progress called One Hundred Histories.

Jimmy Santiago Baca reads poems and prose from his body of work, including A Glass of Water (2009), A Place to Stand (2002), Healing Earthquakes (2001), Martín & Meditations on the South Valley (1987), and C-Train (Dream Boy's Story) and Thirteen Mexicans: Poems (2002).

In this reading, originally given with David Foster Wallace, Peter Rock reads a story that would later appear in the collection The Unsettling: Stories (2006).

Richard Russo reads the title story from his collection The Whore's Child and Other Stories (2002).

Francine Prose reads from her novel A Changed Man (2005).

Patricia Hampl reads an excerpt from her memoir The Florist's Daughter (2007).

Alan Heathcock reads from the collection Volt: Stories (2011).

Aurelie Sheehan reads a story from the collection Jack Kerouac Is Pregnant (1994), as well as two unpublished works.

Linda Hogan reads poems from her collections Calling Myself Home (1978), Seeing through the Sun (1985), Savings (1988), and The Book of Medicines (1993). The reading also includes an essay from Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World (1995).

Lawrence Clark Powell reads from his novel The Blue Train (1977).

Luis Alberto Urrea reads from Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border (1993), The Fever of Being (1994), Wandering Time: Western Notebooks (1999), and also from The Best American Poetry (1996).

Nicole Walker reads from her memoir Quench Your Thirst with Salt (2013). This reading was originally given with Brent Hendricks.

Brent Hendricks reads from his memoir A Long Day at the End of the World: A Story of Desecration and Revelation in the Deep South (2013). This reading was originally given with Nicole Walker.

Poetry Center Summer Resident Polly Rosenwaike reads an excerpt from the short story Grow Your Eyelashes. This reading was originally given with Samuel Ace and Dexter L. Booth.

Matt Méndez reads from Twitching Heart (2012). This reading was originally given with C.E. Poverman as part of the UA Prose Series.

Arianne Zwartjes reads selections from Detailing Trauma: A Poetic Anatomy (2012), along with new work.

Lia Purpura reads from Rough Likeness (2011) as well as new and uncollected work. This reading was given as part of the Hybrid Writing Series, co-sponsored by the UA Prose Series.

Jenny Boully reads excerpts from of the mismatched teacups, of the single-serving spoon (2012) and not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them (2011), as well as new and uncollected work. This reading was given as part of the Hybrid Writing Series, co-sponsored by the UA Prose Series.

Aurelie Sheehan reads from Jewelry Box: A Collection of Histories (2013). This reading was originally given with Farid Matuk.

Wallace Stegner reads an excerpt from a manuscript that was in progress at the time of the reading; it would later be published as Recapitulation (1979).

Aisha Sabatini Sloan reads an early version of "Ocean Park No. 6," titled after a painting by Richard Diebenkorn. "Ocean Park No. 6" would go on to be published in the essay collection Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit.

Susan Steinberg reads a short story from Spectacle (2013).

Lucy Corin reads from her short story collection, One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses (2013).

Claribel Alegría reads poems and prose from Luisa in Realityland (1987), Woman of the River (1989), Fugues (1993), and Thresholds / Umbrales (1996).

Junot Díaz reads excerpts of his short story "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars," later collected in This Is How You Lose Her (2012).

Luis Alberto Urrea reads from Vatos (2000) and Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life (2002), along with a poem that would later be collected in The Tijuana Book of the Dead (2015).

Rolando Hinojosa reads widely from his work in English and Spanish.

Australian poets Vincent Buckley, Les Murray, and David Malouf visit Tucson to read their work, also providing background and commentary. Les Murray reads a selection of poems in chronological order, including his oldest poem "The Burning Crook." Vincent Buckley reads from Golden Builders (1976), Late Winter Child (1979), and The Pattern (1979), as well as some unpublished poems. David Malouf reads both poetry and passages from his novel An Imaginary Life (1978).

Robert Boswell reads from the second chapter of his novel Mystery Ride (1993). Antonya Nelson reads her short story "Irony, Irony, Irony," which would later be collected in Female Trouble (2003).

Just after joining the University of Arizona faculty, Elizabeth Evans reads the first chapter of an unpublished manuscript titled Ancient History, parts of which went on to be included in her novel Rowing in Eden (2000).

Ander Monson reads two poems inspired by the movie Predator, along with four essays collected in Letters to a Future Lover (2015).

John Gardner reads from two of his stories, "Coyote and the Dead Man" and "Come on Back."

Patricia Hampl opens with two poems, "The Moment" and "Last Letter." Then she reads the essay "Pilgrimage" from her book Spillville (1986), as well as two excerpts from her memoir A Romantic Education (1981). At this event, Hampl also read from Virgin Time: In Search of the Contemplative Life (1992), but this portion of her reading was not recorded.

Ron Hansen reads two Nebraska-based stories: "True Romance," which combines two of the author's personal experiences in Nebraska and Minnesota, and "Nebraska," which was used as the prologue for a Nebraska-themed issue of Prairie Schooner (Summer, 1986).

John Harmon McElroy reads work from several major American authors. He opens with a brief passage from John Dos Passos's USA Trilogy (1930-1936), and reads from works including Washington Irving's The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon (1819), Henry James's The American (1877), Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854), Herman Melville's Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855), Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850), Walt Whitman's Specimen Days (1892), several poems by Emily Dickinson, and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).

Tillie Olsen reads excerpts from Tell Me a Riddle (1961), her collection of short stories; Yonnondio: From the Thirties (1974), an unfinished novel; and the classic work of nonfiction, Silences (1978). Olsen's reading is interspersed with anecdotes and narrative summaries.

Boyer Rickel reads poetry from his first book, Arreboles (1991), touching on family and childhood memories, experiences living in Tucson, and musicians and writers of previous centuries. He also reads an essay that would go on to be published in Taboo (1999), which he introduces by discussing his approach to writing essays that follow the form of poems, not returning to a main idea but moving through it.

Richard Marius reads an excerpt from an early draft of his novel After the War (1992).

Greg Sarris reads a story titled "Waiting for the Green Frog" from his collection Grand Avenue: A Novel in Stories (1994).

Frank Waters reads from his novel The Man Who Killed the Deer (1942) and his memoir Pumpkin Seed Point (1973).

N. Scott Momaday reads from his novel The Ancient Child (1989), then under the working title Set, the Kiowa word for 'bear.'

John A. Williams reads poems from an early manuscript that would eventually come to form his collection Safari West (1998). He then reads from his novel !Click Song (1982), investigating issues of race, colonialism, and diaspora. Both books are winners of the American Book Award.

Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig read for the Writers At Work Series. Wittig and Zeig team to play the parts of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in a play written by Wittig and translated by Zeig, Le Voyage sans fin (The Constant Journey, 1985), based on Miguel de Cervantes's classic novel. Before performing the play, Wittig gives a brief talk explaining the role of transposition and gender roles in her adaption of Cervantes's work.

Jim Simmerman reads from a manuscript that would become his collection Kingdom Come (1999), a series of persona poems written in the voices of various Biblical characters. Jewell Parker Rhodes reads from her first novel, Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau (1993), inspired by the life of the famed 19th century Voodoo Queen. She reads two scenes from the novel, the first set just before Marie Laveau's tenth birthday, and the second during the performance of one of Laveau's greatest miracles.

Robert Houston reads from the manuscript of a novel in progress with the working title The Book of the South, about Reconstruction era Alabama. He dedicates this reading to the memory of Cecil Robinson, former chairman of the University of Arizona English Department.

Bruce Dobler explains the relationship of his work to documentary fiction. He speaks of the necessity of journalistic fiction and the writer's task of capturing "the spirit and mood of a place and a time that would otherwise be inaccessible." Dobler reads from his novel, The Last Rush North (1976), exploring the construction of the Alaskan pipeline. Rather than picking a single chapter in the novel, Dobler reads an assortment of excerpts following one of the novel's many characters, a truck driver named Jill Jones. He closes with an excerpt following a character named Little Nasty, who gets into a fight with a much larger man.

Thomas Rogers reads from the manuscript of his novel At the Shores (1980). At the time of the reading, the novel was a work in progress with the title The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole.

Mary Elsie Robertson reads a chapter from her novel What I Have to Tell You (1989). This University of Arizona Creative Writing faculty reading was originally given with Vivian Gornick.

Leonard Michaels reads from short stories written throughout his career, and concludes the reading with an excerpt from his novel The Men's Club (1981). His uncompromising realist sketches catch characters at their darkest and most vulnerable moments, and are colored with absurdist humor. Stories include those published in his collections Going Places (1969) and I Would Have Saved Them If I Could (1975). 

Matt Bell reads from his novel Scrapper (2015). This reading was originally given with 2015 Poetry Center Summer Resident Hieu Minh Nguyen.

In this performance for the Writers at Work Series, Katherine Toy Miller and Vance Bourjaily read from their fiction. Katherine Toy Miller reads six short stories from a collection titled Eleanor, along with a short story titled "The Critical Session." Vance Bourjaily reads segments from a novel-in-progress called The Great Fake Book. Bourjaily ends his reading by performing a short solo on the cornet.

Phillip Lopate reads essays from Getting Personal (2003) and Portrait Inside My Head (2013), as well as one uncollected essay. 

Essayist and poet Erik Reece reads poems from A Short History of the Present (2009) and essays from An American Gospel: On Family, History, and the Kingdom of God (2009) as well as Utopia Drive: A Road Trip Through America's Most Radical Idea (2016).

Kimiko Hahn reads from Toxic Flora (2010) and Brain Fever (2014). This reading was given as part of the Spectacular Poetics series. 

David Shields reads essays from Other People: Takes & Mistakes (2017). This reading was originally given with Elena Passarello.

Joy Williams gives the first public reading of "Portion," a new short story.

Charles Yu reads "Origin Story," a draft of a chapter from his novel Interior Chinatown (2020). This reading was originally given with Kristen Radtke.

Kristen Radtke reads from Imagine Wanting Only This (2017). This reading was originally given with Charles Yu.

Francisco Cantú reads from his essay collection The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border (2018). This reading was originally given with Sylvia Chan and Thomas Mira y Lopez. 

Rubén Martínez discusses being at an impasse in writing, what he describes as surgimiento in Spanish, or emergence. His talk touches on his personal experience and writing, as well as work by other writers and artists.

Venita Blackburn reads from Black Jesus and Other Superheroes (2017) as well as one story, "Fam," that would later appear in her collection How to Wrestle a Girl (2021).

James Allen Hall reads the title essay from I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well (2017).

Nicole Walker reads from her essay collection Sustainability: A Love Story (2018).

Aimee Bender reads one uncollected story and one story from The Color Master (2014).

Joy Williams reads from the final section of her fifth novel, Harrow (2021), sharing a stream-of-consciousness passage from the perspective of Jeffrey, a precocious, ten-year-old judge presiding in a post-apocalyptic future. This reading was presented as part of the Distinguished Visitors in Creative Writing Series.