43rd Annual Writers Week Conference 2020

Event Information

• UC Riverside, 900 University Ave, Riverside CA 92521
• 2020-02-12 11:00:00
• Free
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE
Department of Creative Writing

43rd Annual Writers Week Conference 2020
Tom Lutz, Writers Week director


Writers Week is the longest-running, free literary event in California and features the most renowned authors of our day alongside those at the start of promising careers.

Ishmael Beah • Norma Cantú • Elizabeth Cantwell • Marilyn Chin • Karla Cordero • Diana Marie Delgado • Jonathan Friedman • Rachel Howzell Hall • Brandon Hobson • Brian Hudson • Anna Journey • Tom Lutz • Angela Morales • Walter Mosley • Wendy C. Ortiz • Victoria Patterson • Cati Porter • Joseph Rios • Ricco Siasoco • Jake Skeets • Jerry Stahl • Susan Straight • Lisa Teasley • Sergio Troncoso

February 10-14, 2020

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SCHEDULE: Wednesday, Feb 12

11:00 Jake Skeets
12:00 Cati Porter
Elizabeth Cantwell
1:30 Susan Straight
3:00 Ricco Siasoco
4:30 Brian Hudson
6:30. Ishmael Beah – D. Charles Whitney Reader
CHASS Interdisciplinary Building, South - Screening Room, INTS 1128
Free and open to the public.

Parking: Complimentary permits available at the Information Kiosk Booth.
Information: (951) 827-3245 [email protected] www.creativewriting.ucr.edu
@UCRWritersWeek #UCRWritersWeek
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BIOGRAPHIES

Ishmael Beah born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, is a New York Times and international bestselling author of  A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and  Radiance Of Tomorrow, A Novel. His memoir has been published in over 40 languages and was nominated for a Quill Award in the Best Debut Author category for 2007. Time named the book one of the Top 10 Nonfiction books of 2007, ranking at number 3. His novel, written with the gentle lyricism of a dream and the moral clarity of a fable, is a powerful book about preserving what means the most to us, even in uncertain times. Already available in several foreign languages, The New York Times finds in his writing an “allegorical richness” and a “remarkable humanity to his characters.” His upcoming novel, Little Family,  published by Riverhead Books, will be released on April 28, 2020. He is based in Los Angeles, California, with his wife and children.

Elizabeth Cantwell is a poet and teacher living in Claremont, CA, with her husband (screenwriter Christopher Cantwell) and their two sons. She teaches Humanities at The Webb Schools, and her poetry has appeared in a variety of journals, including  DIAGRAM, The Cincinnati Review, The Los Angeles Review, Hobart, and The Missouri Review. She is the author of a chapbook, Premonitions (Grey Book Press), and two full-length books of poetry. Her first book of poems,  Nights I Let The Tiger Get You  (Black Lawrence Press), was a finalist for the 2012 Hudson Prize. Her second book,  All the Emergency-Type Structures, was a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the regional winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk Prize.

Brian Hudson is a citizen of Cherokee Nation from Bushyhead, Oklahoma. He has published in the genre of Indigenous science fiction, including the novelette Digital Medicine and in mitewacimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Storytelling. In addition to creative work, he has published critical work on animals in Native literature, and he currently teaches Native studies, writing, and digital storytelling in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Tom Lutz is the author of Born Slippy: A Novel. He is the founding editor of Los Angeles Review of Books and a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UCR. His other work includes two books of travel essays, Drinking Mare’s Milk on the Roof of the World, And the Monkey Learned Nothing, the cultural histories Crying and Doing Nothing, the literary histories Cosmopolitan Vistas and American Nervousness, 1903.
Cati Porter is a poet, editor, essayist, arts administrator, wife, mother, daughter, friend. She is the author of eight books and chapbooks, including The Body at a Loss (CavanKerry Press, 2019). Her poems have won prizes from So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art and Gravity & Light, been a finalist for competitions offered by Crab Creek Review, Elixir Press, and elsewhere, and has appeared in Verse Daily, Contrary, West Trestle, The Nervous Breakdown, and others, including about a half dozen anthologies. She is also the executive director of Inlandia Institute, an inland southern California literary nonprofit, and founder and editor of Poemeleon: A Journal of Poetry.

Ricco Villanueva Siasoco is a writer, educator, and activist. He received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and has taught at Boston College, Columbia University, and the Massachusetts College of Art. Ricco has received fellowships from The Center for Fiction, Lambda Literary, and The National Endowment for the Humanities. He is a board member of Kundiman, a national literary organization dedicated to Asian American literature. Ricco lives in Los Angeles. The Foley Artist is his first book.

Jake Skeets is Black Streak Wood, born for Water’s Edge. He is Diné from Vanderwagen, New Mexico. He is the author of  Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, a National Poetry Series-winning collection of poems.  He holds an MFA in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Skeets is a winner of the 2018 Discovery/Boston Review  Poetry Contest and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Skeets edits an online publication called  Cloudthroat  and organizes a poetry salon and reading series called Pollentongue, based in the Southwest. He is a member of Saad Bee Hózhǫ́: A Diné Writers’ Collective and currently teaches at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona.

Susan Straight was born in Riverside and still lives here with her family. She has published ten books and numerous articles and stories.  Highwire Moon  was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001;  A Million Nightingales  was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2006. Her short stories have appeared in  Zoetrope,  The Ontario Review,  The Oxford American,  The Sun,  Black Clock, and other magazines. “The Golden Gopher,” from Los Angelas Noir, won the Edgar Award in 2007; “El Ojo de Agua,” from Zoetrope, won an O. Henry Award in 2007. Her essays have appeared in The  New York Times, Reader’s Digest,  Family Circle,  Salon, Los Angeles Times,  Harpers, The Nation, and other magazines. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to work on  Highwire Moon, and a Lannan Prize was an immense help when working on  Take One Candle Light a Room. Her latest is In the Country of Women.
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Works by Writers Week authors will be available at the UCR Bookstore and at Cellar Door Books in Canyon Crest Towne Center.
Writers Week 2020 is made possible by support from African Student Programs, Office of the Chancellor, California Center for Native Nations, Prof. Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, UCR Department of Ethnic Studies, UCR Department of English, Ratliffe Family Foundation, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Dr. Clifford Trafzer, Distinguished Professor of History and Rupert and Jeanette Henry Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs.