Paul Griner

April 2015

Paul Griner, a former Fulbright Scholar, is the author of the short story collection Follow Me (Random House), a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, and the novels Collectors (Random House) and The German Woman(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). His work has been published in Tin House, One Story, Ploughshares, Playboy, Zoetrope, The Telegraph of India, and many other magazines, journals, and anthologies, and has been translated into a half dozen languages. His novel Second Life will be published by Counterpoint/Soft Skull in January 2015. His collection of stories Hurry Please, I Want To Know, will be published by Sarabande in Jun 2015.

He is the recipient of UofL’s Outstanding Teaching Awards at both the college and university levels as well as well as the Graduate School’s Outstanding Mentor Award. He has a BA in History from the University of New Hampshire, an MA in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard, and an MA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University.

Michelle Latiolais

March 2015

Michelle Latiolais is an English professor and co-director of the Programs in Writing at the University of California at Irvine. Her novel Even Now won the Gold Medal for Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California. Her most recent novel, A Proper Knowledge, was published by Bellevue Literary Press. Latiolais’ 2011 collection of short stories, Widow, was largely written after the tragic death of her husband, and her stories explore the physiology of grief -- reminding us that the inner life is best understood through the medium of storytelling.

Sayed Kashua

February 2015

Sayed Kashua is the author of three novels: Dancing Arabs, Let it Be Morning and Person Singular, winner of the Berstein Prize. Kashua also writes a satirical weekly column in Hebrew for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. In a humorous, tongue-in-cheek style, Kashua addresses the problems faced by Arabs in Israel, caught between two worlds. He is the writer and creator of the hit Israeli TV show Arab Labor (Avoda Aravit), now in its third season. In 2004 Kashua was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize in Literature. He is also the subject of the documentary Forever Scared.

Kashua’s presentation at UofL is entitled “The Foreign Mother Tongue: Living and Writing as a Palestinian in Israel.” His visit is co-sponsored by the Program in Judaic Studies in the Division of Humanities.