The Anne & William Axton Reading Series

The Anne and William Axton Reading Series was established in 1999 through the generosity of the late William Axton, former University of Louisville English professor, and his wife, Anne. The Series brings highly distinguished poets and writers from across the country to the University of Louisville for two-day visits to read from their work, and to share their knowledge and expertise with the University and local community. Writers give a public reading followed by an informal question and answer session on the first evening at the Belknap Campus at 7:30 pm. The following morning they conduct a master class where student work is critiqued. Both events are free, and the public is welcome and encouraged to attend.

Previous seasons have included Robert Pinsky, Charles Wright, Nathaniel Mackey, Susan Minot, Mary Karr, Stephen Dobyns, Lynnell Edwards, Colson Whitehead, Robin Lippincott, Robert Hass, Silas House, Beverly Lowry, George Saunders, and Louise Glück.  The Spring 2009 Series will bring Scott Russell Sanders, V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan, and Lydia Davis.
 

Spring 2009 Schedule

Scott Russell Sanders has written more than twenty books, including novels, collections of stories, and works of personal nonfiction such as Staying Put, Writing from the Center, and Hunting for Hope. His latest book is A Private History of Awe, a coming-of-age memoir, love story, and spiritual testament, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Sanders is currently a Distinguished Professor of English at Indiana University, and has won the university's highest teaching award. He has received numerous writing awards and grants. The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature recently names Sanders the 2009 winner of the Mark Twain Award. A Conservationist Manifesto, his vision of a shift to a sustainable society, will be published in 2009. Sanders' writing examines the human place in mature, the pursuit of social justice, the relation between culture and geography, and the search for a spiritual path.

Reading: Thursday, Feb. 5, 7:30 p.m., Bingham Poetry Room
Master Class: Friday, Feb. 6, 10am-noon, Humanities 300 

Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan, a fiction writer and journalist, published her first novel, Love Marriage in April 2008, lives in New York. She is a 2002 graduate of Harvard College. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Ganeshananthan has written and reported for the The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sepia Mutiny and The American Prospect, among others. She is the Vice President of the South Asian Journalists Association and a member of the graduate board of the The Harvard Crimson.

Reading: Thursday, Feb. 26, 7:30pm, Bingham Poetry Room
Master Class: Friday, Feb. 27, 10:00-noon, Bingham Poetry Room

Lydia Davis is the author of four collections of short fiction, including Varieties of Disturbance, a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award; Break It Down; Samuel Johnson is Indignant; and a novel,The End of the Story. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Poetry, and has been published in numerous literary journals ranging from The New Yorker to McSweeny's.  Davis is also the translator of numerous avant-garde French novels, memoirs, and volumes of literary criticism, most recently, Swann's Way by Marcel Proust, which received the French-American Foundation Annual Translation Prize.  Among her other awards and honors, Davis was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and translation, and in 2003 received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. She is on the faculty of SUNY Albany and a fellow of the New York State Writers Institute.

Reading: Thursday, Apr. 2, 7:30 p.m., Bingham Poetry Room
Master Class: Friday, Apr. 3, 10am-noon, Humanities 300 

Locations and dates subject to change.  Please call the English Department at U of L to verify schedule at (502) 852-6801.