2011 Fall Readings Series

POET JAMES MEETZE

Thursday SEPTEMBER 15
7:00 p.m., Hyde Art Gallery (Building 25)
Poet and songwriter James Meetze received the Poet Laureate Award from the University of California in 2001.  Meetze's chapbooks--Serenades (Cy Press 2003), Instrument (Sea Lamb Press 2004), and It's Overhead (Fashionably Pressed 2007)--paved the way for the release of his first poetry collection, I Have Designed This For You (Editions Assemblage) in 2007, and in 2010 his second collection, Dayglo (Ahsahta Press), was bestowed the prestigious 2010 Sawtooth Poetry Prize.  Meetze, who is currently a Lecturer in the Creative Writing Program at California State University, San Marcos, co-founded the now defunct poetry movement, New Brutalism, and helped to launch Tougher Disguises in 2002, a small press whose roster of experimental poets includes Peter Gizzi and Clark Coolidge, among others.  James Meetze is also front-man for the alternative rock band, Dreamtiger, which released its EP, Glisten, in 2008.
 

CELEBRATION OF BANNED BOOKS READING

Thursday SEPTEMBER 29
7:00 p.m., Room 150 (Bldg. 34)
Join Joe Medina of the Grossmont College English Department for an evening of school and scandal with a CELEBRATION OF BANNED BOOKS, in honor of National Banned Books Week.  Topics change annually in this thought-provoking and sometimes audacious event.  Topics from past years have included Sandra Cisneros, Susan Patron, Langston Hughes, James Joyce, Sherman Alexie, Erica Jong, J.K. Rowling, Lenny Bruce, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Dorothy Allison, banned children's literature, controversial fan fiction and slash, censored anime and manga, and many others.  The 2011 reading will include students, community members and faculty.  
 

FICTION WRITER CRIS MAZZA

Wednesday OCTOBER 12
12:30 p.m., Room 220 (Building 26)
Widely anthologized Southern California native Cris Mazza has published nine novels, a collection of essays, and four collections of short fiction.  Her writing is heralded as an example of post-feminist, formalist or contemporary experimental fiction.  She is responsible, along with Jeffrey DeShell, for coining the now commonly used term, "chick lit."   
 
Mazza won the PEN / Nelson Algren Award for her novel How to Leave a Country. In addition, she was recipient to an &NOW Award in 2009 for her story “Trickle-Down Timeline” (published in The &NOW Awards: The Best Innovative Writing in 2009) and has participated in the biennial &NOW Festival. Currently, she directs the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
 

3rd Annual
LESTER BANGS MEMORIAL READING

Featuring JUSTIN HUDNALL
Wednesday OCTOBER 19
7:00 p.m., , Room 220 (Building 26)
Faculty, alumni writers, and guests read their original works of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, while paying tribute to Grossmont College alumnus Lester A. Bangs, who has come into recognition as “America’s Greatest Rock Critic.”  Considered one of the most influential voices in rock criticism, music critic Bangs is credited for coining the term "punk," and his subversive spirit and creativity continue to influence generations of writers.

 
CELEBRATION OF THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS

Monday OCTOBER 24 through Wednesday NOVEMBER 2
Information about events, times and venues, available on the GC Henrietta Lacks Resource Center.
 

AUTHOR LIDIA YUKNAVITCH

Monday NOVEMBER 14
7:00 p.m., Room 220 (Building 26)
In addition to her book of criticism, Allegories of Violence (Routledge 2000), Lidia Yuknavitch has authored three collections of short fiction: Reel to Reel (FC2 2002), Liberty's Excess (FC2 2000), and Her Other Mouths (House of Bones Press 1997).  Her writing has appeared in a variety of literary journals, including Postmodern Culture, Fiction International, Another Chicago Magazine, Zyzzyva, Critical Matrix, Other Voices, and has been anthologized in RePresenting Bisexualities (NYU Press 1996) and Third Wave Agenda (University of Minnesota Press 1997).
 
Having served as co-editor of Northwest Edge: Deviant Fictions and as editor of Two Girls' Review, Yuknavitch now teaches fiction writing and literature in Oregon.
 

NEW VOICES: A STUDENT READING

Tuesday DECEMBER 06
7:00 p.m., Room 220 (Building 26)
New Voices: A Student Reading, features standout students from the Grossmont College Creative Writing Program's current semester of courses, reading their original short fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, novel excerpts, drama, and mixed media literary works. Refreshments and desserts, made possible by a generous grant from WACC (World Arts and Cultures Committee).