News and Events
Events
April Student/Faculty Reading Mixes It Up with MFAs Past and Present
Kyle Minor graduated from OSU's Fiction MFA program in 2007 and read from his first book,
In the Devil's Territory, published in 2009. He is currently the Visiting Writer at the University of Toledo.
Publisher's Weekly states that the stories in
In the Devil's Territory show that "Minor has a knack for capturing melancholy and establishing empathy for his book's many wayward characters." To read more about
In the Devil's Territory and Kyle's other publications, check out his website,
http://www.kyleminor.com/.
Andrew Brogdon is described by his colleagues as a cunning and charming Southerner whose poetry commands the attention of the whole room. He got his start writing poetry when he came across a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem (#20 from
A Coney Island of the Mind) in
Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days during his previous life as a computer programmer. His poems tend to feature deadpan delivery and spring on the audience conclusions and perspectives of unexpected impact and clarity. He read a series of ten poems, which he arranged in reverse chronological order to give the audience a sense of his journey from his early days as a recovering former computer-programmer.
If Andrew's poetry is influenced by his Southern background and pop culture familiarity, then
Annie McGreevey's fiction speaks volumes about the years she spent living in Spain before joining OSU's MFA program. Her stories tend to feature the themes of foreignness and issues of miscommunication and translation. Her protagonists often see themselves as tricksters-whether they really are or not-and colleagues describe Annie's style as using voice and suspense to create "the seductive allure of a place you've always wanted to go," recreating for her readers a sense of immersion and abandon. Annie read from her story "Personal Statement," which describes a (somewhat deluded) Spanish boy's efforts to write the perfect personal statement for a prestigious scholarship to Andover, while simultaneously becoming aware of his romantic interest for his older gigolo brother's intellectually-challenged girlfriend.
