Writers Harvest to celebrate writing, collect food for food bank
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Writers Harvest, the Purdue University Creative Writing Program annual benefit reading, will be 7:30 p.m. Nov. 17 at the Wells Center, 638 North Street in Lafayette.
Voluntary donations of five canned goods or $8 for the general public or $5 for students are requested for this event. All proceeds will go directly to Food Finders Food Bank. This year's featured writers will be Creative Writing Program faculty members Marianne Boruch, Mary Leader and Patricia Henley. In addition, Amy Hassinger, author of "The Priest's Madonna" and "Nina: Adolescence," will read from her work.
Food Finders Food Bank distributes 5 million pounds of food and dry goods to 170 nonprofit agencies in 16 Indiana counties, reaching thousands of hungry Hoosiers and their families every year. Donating to Food Finders allows contributions to be shared equally among all agencies and their clients.
Boruch is the author of seven poetry collections, including "The Book of Hours," published by Canyon Press earlier this year. Her poems and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The Nation, Iowa Review, The Georgia Review and have been anthologized in The Best American Poetry, 1997; Boomer Girls; Poets of the New Century; Poets Reading: The field Symposia; and elsewhere. Her awards include two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim Foundation. Boruch is a professor of English and teaches at the Warren Wilson College low-residency MFA Program for Writers.
Henley is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, three short-story collections, two novels, a stage play and numerous essays. Her first book of stories, "Friday Night at Silver Star," was the winner of the Montana First Book Award. Her first novel, "Hummingbird House," was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent publications include an essay in Smithsonian Magazine and short stories in Glimmer Train, Seattle Review and The Normal School. She has taught in Purdue's MFA program since 1987.
Leader has published three books of poetry: "Red Signature," which won the 1996 National Poetry Series; "The Penultimate Suitor," which won the 2000 Iowa Poetry Prize; and "Beyond the Fire." She currently teaches in Purdue's MFA program and in the low-residency MFA program at Warren Wilson College.
Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, 765-494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu
Sources: Jessica Farquhar, assistant director of the Creative Writing Program, 765-494-3783, jfarquha@purdue.edu
Patricia Henley, phenley@purdue.edu
Marianne Boruch, mboruch@purdue.edu
Related websites:
Purdue College of Liberal Arts