2013-2014 Axton Reading Series

Spring Axton Series

Kyle Coma-Thompson is the author The Lucky Body (Dock Street Press, 2013). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, AGNI, The American Reader, New American Writing, Bat City Review and elsewhere. He has held fellowships as an Axton Fellow in Creative Writing at University of Louisville, a Bennett Fellow at Phillips Exeter Academy, and a Hoyns Fellow at the University of Virginia.

Reading: Thurs., 2/6, 7:30PM, Bingham Poetry Room

Master Class:  Fri., 2/7, 10AM-Noon, Humanities 300

 

Austin Bunn is a writer for film, theatre, and print.  He wrote the screenplay for Kill Your Darlings (Sony Pictures Classics), with the film's director John Krokidas, which stars Daniel Radcliffe, Ben Foster, Michael C Hall. The film premiered at Sundance, screened at the Toronto and Hampton's Film Festival, and won the International Prize at the Venice Film Festival. His plays have been performed and workshopped at The Lark, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The New Harmony Project, The Orchard Project, and elsewhere. His short documentary, Lavender Hill: a love story, premiered at Outfest 2013. Bunn’s fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The Missouri Review, WBEZ, NPR, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and elsewhere.  He is the co-author, with film producer Christine Vachon, of the L.A. Times best-seller A Killer Life: How An Independent Film Producer Survives Deals and Disasters Far From Hollywood (Simon and Schuster). He received his B.A. from Yale University, and an M.F.A. From the Iowa Writers' Workshop (Fiction) and Playwrights' Worksop (Playwriting). He was an Axton Fellow in Fiction Writing at the University of Louisville, and he is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University.

Viewing: Thurs., 3/20, 7:30PM, Floyd Street Theater

Master Class: Fri., 3/21, 10Am-Noon, Humanities 300

 

 

Elissa Schappell is the author of two books of fiction, most recently Blueprints for Building Better Girls, which was chosen as one of the “Best Books of the Year” by TheSan Francisco Chronicle, TheBoston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek/Daily Beast and O Magazine, and Use Me, a Los Angeles Times “Best Book of the Year” a New York Times “Notable Book,” and runner up for the PEN/Hemingway award. She is co-editor with Jenny Offill of two anthologies, The Friend Who Got Away and Money Changes Everything.  Her fiction, non-fiction and criticism has appeared in many publications including The New York Times Book Review, SPIN,BOMB, One Story, and anthologies such as The Mrs. Dalloway Reader, The Bitch in the House, The KGB Reader, and Lit Riffs. Schappell is a Contributing Editor and the “Hot Type” columnist at Vanity Fair, a former Senior Editor at The Paris Review and a Founding-editor, now Editor-at-Large of Tin House magazine. She teaches in the MFA program at Columbia and in the low-residency program at Queens in NC. She lives in Brooklyn.

Reading: Thurs., 4/10, 7:30PM, Bingham Poetry Room

Master Class: Fri., 4/11, 10AM-Noon, Humanities 300

Fall Axton Series

Greg Wrenn's first book of poems, Centaur, was selected by Terrance Hayes for the 2013 Brittingham Prize and was published by the University of Wisconsin Press. Born and raised in northeast Florida, Wrenn is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow and recipient of the Lyric Poetry Award from the Poetry Society of America as well as the Margaret Bridgman Scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference. How work has appeared in New England Review, The Yale Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. A graduate of Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis, he is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University.

Reading: Thurs., 9/26, 7:30pm, Bingham Poetry Room

Master Class: Friday, 9/27, 10am-noon, HM300

 

Tim Gautreaux was born in Morgan City, Louisiana in 1947. He attended the University of South Carolina where he earned a Ph.D in English Literature. His published fiction includes two collections of short stories (Same Place, Same Things, Welding with Children) and three novels (The Next Step in the Dance, The Clearing, The Missing). His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, GQ and many other magazines. Among his awards are a National Magazine Award, Southeastern Booksellers Award for best novel, Mid-South Booksellers award, The Heasley Prize, The John Dos Passos Prize, Louisiana Writer of the Year Award, and an NEA Creative Fellowship. The Clearing, published by Alfred A. Knopf, made several top ten lists, including the USA Today list of the ten best books of 2003. His most recent novel, The Missing, appeared in March 2009 to glowing reviews. Presently Dr. Gautreaux maintains a connection to Southeastern Louisiana University as professor emeritus and writer in residence. He lives half the year in Jefferson NC. was born in Bishop, California in 1984.

Reading: Sat., 10/12, 6-8 p.m., Cressman Center

 

Tony Hoagland's four collections of poems include What Narcissism Means to Me, and Donkey Gospel. A book on poetic craft and art, Real Sofistikashun, is also published by Graywolf Press. His work has won the Poetry Foundation's Mark Twain Award in 2005, the Jackson Prize, the O.B. Hardisson Prize, and The James Laughlin Award. He teaches writing and literature at the University of Houston, and at the Warren Wilson low residency MFA. In 2012, he started Five Powers Poetry, a program for coaching high school teachers in the teaching of poetry in the classroom

Reading: Thurs., 11/21, 7:00pm, Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library

Master Class: Friday, 11/22, 10am-noon, Humanities 300

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