Past Events

3 August 2011, at 8:00 p.m., Reading by Kimberly Johnson, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.
11 April 2011, Monday, 8:00 p.m., Poetry Reading by David Starkey, Aula Magna Regina, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

David Starkey directs the Creative Writing Program at Santa Barbara City College. Among his poetry collections are Starkey’s Book of States (Boson Books, 2007), Adventures of the Minor Poet (Artamo Press, 2007), Ways of Being Dead: New and Selected Poems (Artamo, 2006), David Starkey’s Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2002) and Fear of Everything, winner of Palanquin Press’s Spring 2000 chapbook contest. A Few Things You Should Know about the Weasel will be published by the Canadian press Biblioasis next year. In addition, over the past twenty years he has published more than 400 poems in a wide range of literary journals and written two textbooks: Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008) and Poetry Writing: Theme and Variations (McGraw-Hill, 1999). With Paul Willis, he co-edited In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare (Iowa, 2005), and he is the editor of Living Blue in the Red States (Nebraska, 2007). Keywords in Creative Writing, which he co-authored with the late Wendy Bishop, was published in 2006 by Utah State University Press.

17 March 2011, Thursday, 7:00 p.m., A TRIBUTE TO BRODSKY, Aula Magna Regina, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

“John Cabot University is honored to host such an exceptional literary event,” said JCU President Franco Pavoncello last night as he welcomed guests who were overflowing in the Aula Magna Regina for the first day of “A Tribute to Joseph Brodsky, “thirty years after the Russian exile and Nobel Laureate poet (1940-1996) was a Resident at the American Academy in Rome in 1981.

Six international writers—Roberto Calasso (Italy), Boris Khersonsky (Russia), Mary Jo Salter and Mark Strand (USA), Derek Walcott (St. Lucia) and Adam Zagajewski (Poland) gathered to read from their own work in honor of Brodsky.

Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott , former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Strand, and award-winning poet Mary Jo Salter all read poems in honor of Brodsky or dedicated to him as well as additional poems of their own; Roberto Calasso presented a new memoir, “Speaking with Brodsky;” Adam Zagajewski and Boris Khersonsky, who was a Fellow at the AAR under the auspices of the Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship Fund, also presented their work.

The event was organized by the American Academy in Rome in collaboration with the Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship Fund, John Cabot University, the Casa delle Letterature/Comune di Roma, and the University of Rome "La Sapienza".

"It was a tremendous pleasure to work with the American Academy in Rome to host an event featuring such world-renowned poets to honor the life and work of Joseph Brodsky," commented Professor Carlos Dews, Chair of JCU's Department of English Language and Literature and Director of the Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation.

The two-day program was made possible by the generous support of AAR Trustee Nancy M. O’Boyle, the Embassy of the United States of America in Rome, and the Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship Fund.

On Friday 18 March in the Sala Aurelia of the AAR’s Villa Aurelia, Tribute participants presented a selection of Brodsky’s poems in English, Italian, and Russian (with an accompanying PowerPoint projection of translations and original texts), followed by a conversation about the poet's life and work.
 
9 November 2010, Tuesday, 6:00 p.m., Reading by American novelist Michael Mewshaw.
Michael Mewshaw is the former director of the creative writing program at the University of Texas-Austin. He is the author of 18 books including "Ladies of the Court: Grace and Disgrace of the Women's Tennis Circuit" (1993) and "Short Circuit: Six Months on the Men's Professional Tennis Tour" (1983).

25 October 2010, Monday, 7:00 p.m., Reading by American poet Moira Egan. “Women Reading: A Series of Bi-lingual Presentations of Poetry and Prose.”
 
Moira Egan’s poetry collections are Cleave (WWPH, 2004); La Seta della Cravatta/The Silk of the Tie (Edizioni l’Obliquo, 2009); Bar Napkin Sonnets (The Ledge, 2009); and Spin (Entasis Press, 2010). Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2008, and in translation in Nuovi Argomenti and Lo Straniero. With Damiano Abeni, she has published books in translation by John Barth, Mark Strand, Josephine Tey, and John Ashbery, whose collection, Un mondo che non può essere migliore: Poesie scelte 1956-2007, won a Special Prize of the Premio Napoli (2009). She teaches English and Creative Writing at John Cabot University.

18 October 2010, Monday, 6:30 p.m., Reading by Italian poet Antonella Anedda. Part of “Women Reading: A Series of Bi-lingual Presentations of Poetry and Prose.”

Antonella Anedda teaches in the Masters program of the University of Lugano (Switzerland). Her books include Residenze Invernali (1992), Il Catalogo della Gioia (2003), and Notti di Pace Occidentale (1999), which was awarded the Premio Montale. She has also published volumes of translations and three collections of prose. Her latest poetry collection, Dal Balcone del Corpo (2007) was awarded the Dedalus Prize and the Napoli Prize for Book of the Year. Her recent book of ekphrastic prose, La Vita dei Dettagli, was published in 2009. She has also contributed to Poesia and Nuovi Argomenti.
 
14 October 2010, Thursday, 6:30 p.m., Reading by Italian novelist Dacia Maraini. Part of “Women Reading: A Series of Bi-lingual Presentations of Poetry and Prose.” 

Dacia Maraini is one of the best known of contemporary Italian writers. Her works have been widely translated and published in many languages, and her renown is also due to her fine talent as a critic, poet and playwright. When she was 19, she moved to Rome where she met Alberto Moravia and published her first novel, La Vacanza. This novel was followed by many other successful works, which received numerous literary awards, including the Premio Campiello and the Premio Strega. Maraini is the author of more than sixty plays performed in Italy and abroad, her works have been translated into 22 languages. In 1973, she founded the Teatro della Maddalena, managed exclusively by women.

6 October 2010, Wednesday, 7:00 p.m., Reading by Italian novelist and short story writer Chiara Valerio. Part of “Women Reading: A Series of Bi-lingual Presentations of Poetry and Prose.”

Chiara Valerio writes for Nuovi Argomenti and Nazione Indiana. She has published a collection of short stories, A complicare le cose (2003), which was awarded the Carver Prize, and the novels Fermati un minuto a salutare (2006) and Ognuno sta solo (2007). Most recently, she has published (with nottetempo) Nessuna scuola mi consola (2009) and La gioia piccola d'esser quasi salvi (2009) and (with Laterza) Spiaggia libera tutti (2010).

5 October 2010, Tuesday, 6:00 p.m., Reading and lecture by British biographer Alexandra Richardson.

Alexandra Richardson was born in New York and has lived much of her adult life in Italy. She has worked in Bangkok for USIA, in New York for Newsweek Magazine, and in Milan for Selezione dal Reader's Digest. Since marriage, she has been a freelance feature writer and columnist for various Italian, American and English periodicals. She has collaborated on books with James Michener and Lawrence Elliott and contributed the entire Italian section of A Dictionary of Foreign Quotations, edited by Anthony Lejeune and published by Stacey International. Passionate Patron: The Life of Alexander Hardcastle is her own first book.

23 September 2010, Thursday, 7:30 p.m., Reading by South African poet Ingrid de Kok. Part of “Women Reading: A Series of Bi-lingual Presentations of Poetry and Prose.”

Ingrid de Kok is an internationally known South African poet who works at the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies at the University of Cape Town. She is the author of several volumes of poetry, including Seasonal Fires: New and Selected Poems. This bi-lingual reading will also feature Italian versions of de Kok's work from Mappe del corpo (Donzelli Editore), presented by the translator, Professor Paola Splendore of the University of Rome. South African novelist Gillian Slovo has said that Ms. de Kok's is a lyrical voice that has the capacity to ambush.

24 June 2010, Thursday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by Institute students and faculty, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233. 

23 June 2010, Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by Brad Leithauser and Mary Jo Salter, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

Mary Jo Salter is the author of five collections of poems that have won such accolades as the New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She is a coeditor of The Norton Anthology of Poetry and a lyricist who has worked with composers Allen Bonde and Fred Hersch. She is also an essayist and reviewer for such publications as The New York Times Book Review and The Yale Review. She has received many awards, including NEA and Guggenheim fellowships.

Brad Leithauser was born in Detroit and graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He is the author of five novels, a novel in verse, four previous volumes of poetry, a collection of light verse, and a book of essays. Among his many awards and honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Grant, and a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2005, the president of Iceland inducted him into the Order of the Falcon for his writings about Nordic literature. Leithauser and his wife, the poet Mary Jo Salter, are members of the faculty of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

22 June 2010, Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by Peter Campion, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

Peter Campion is the author of two collections of poetry, Other People (2005) and The Lions (2009,) both from the University of Chicago Press. He also published a monograph on the painter Mitchell Johnson in 2004, with Terrence Rogers Fine Art. His poems and prose have appeared recently in AGNI, ArtNews, The Boston Globe, Modern Painters, The New York Times, Poetry, The New Republic, Slate, and The Yale Review. He has received a George Starbuck Lectureship at Boston University, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship at Stanford University, a Pushcart Prize, and a Civitella Ranieri Individual Artist’s Fellowship. He is currently the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. He is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Auburn University. He edits the journal Literary Imagination, which is published by Oxford University Press.

21 June 2010, Monday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by George Minot, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus,Via della Lungara 233.

George Minot was born and raised in a large family in Massachusetts, lived in New York most of his adult life, and now lives in Rome. He is the author of a novel, The Blue Bowl (Knopf), and the forthcoming OmGirl. In addition to fiction, he writes non-fiction, works as an environmental communications consultant (writing and editing), and teaches yoga and healing with whole foods. He has a four year-old son, Milo Minot - who is also his uncompromising Italian language teacher.

15 June 2010, Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by Massimo Gezzi, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

Massimo Gezzi was born in 1976 in Sant’Elpidio a Mare (FM). In 2002 he received his laurea in Modern Literature from the University of Bologna, with an International Montale Prize-winning dissertation about the poet Bartolo Cattafi. He is a contributing editor for Atelier, Poesia and Nuovi Argomenti. He has published two collections of poetry: Il mare a destra (Edizioni Atelier 2004) and L’attimo dopo (Luca Sossella Editore). He has been an Italian Fellow for the Arts of the American Academy in Rome. After living and working for some years in Pavia and Rome, he’s currently working as an assistant at the Italian Institute of the University of Bern Switzerland). He lives between his native town and Switzerland.

14 June 2010, Monday, 8:00 p.m., Michael Reynolds/Europa Editions Panel Discussion on the American Book Market and Books in Translation, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

9 June 2010, Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by Simon Mawer, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

8 June 2010, Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., Craft Workshop by Simon Mawer, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

Simon Mawer is the author of The Glass Room, 2009 Man Booker Prize Short-listed Novel and the 2011 JCU Novelist in Residence for the Summer Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation.

7 June 2010, Monday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by Joseph Harrison, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

Joseph Harrison was born in Richmond, Virginia, grew up in Virginia and Alabama, and studied at Yale and Johns Hopkins. His book Someone Else’s Name (Waywiser, 2003) was named as one of five poetry books of the year by the Washington Post. His second book of poems, Identity Theft, was published by Waywiser in 2008. His poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry 1998, 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, The Library of America’s Anthology of American Religious Poems, the Penguin Pocket Anthology of Poetry, the Penguin Pocket Anthology of Literature, The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, and many journals. In 2005 he was the recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009 he received a Fellowship in Poetry from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He lives in Baltimore.

2 June, Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by Mark Strand, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

1 June, Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., Craft Workshop by Mark Strand, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

Mark Strand is a Pulitzer Prize Winner, Former U.S. Poet Laureate, and Recipient of the Gold Medal in Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

26 May 2010, Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by Eliza Griswold, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

Eliza Griswold’s poems and reportage have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, among many others. She is a fellow at the New America Foundation and at the American Academy in Rome. Her first book of poems, Wideawake Field (FSG), was published in 2007. Her first non-fiction book, The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the fault line between Christianity and Islam will be published by FSG in the fall of 2010.

25 May 2010, Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by Richard Kenney, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233.

Richard Kenney was born in Glens Falls, New York in 1948. In 1970 he won a Reynolds Fellowship to study Celtic lore in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. His works have been published in many magazines and journals, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and The American Scholar. He has been a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellow, a John and Catherine MacArthur Foundation fellow and a Bogliasco Foundation fellow. In 1994, he was awarded the Lannan Literary Award. He currently teaches in the English department at the University of Washington and lives with his family in Port Townsend, Washington. He is the author of four books of poetry: The Evolution of the Flightless Bird (which was awarded the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize), Orrery, The Invention of the Zero, and The One-Strand River.

24 May 2010, Monday, 8:00 p.m., Reading by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, Aula Magna, John Cabot University, Guarini Campus, Via della Lungara 233. Note: This event was originally scheduled for Monday, 31 May.

Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s debut novel, The Last Song of Dusk, won the Betty Trask Award in the UK, the Premio Grinzane Cavour in Italy, and was nominated for the IMPAC Prize in Ireland. Translated into 12 languages, The Last Song of Dusk was an international bestseller. Shanghvi has been voted: India Today’s 50 Most Powerful Young Indians; Times of India’s 10 Global Indians; Hindustan Times: 10 Most Creative Men; Sunday Times UK: The Next Big Thing; New Statesmen UK: India’s Ten Bright Lights; Elle Magazine’s 50 Most Stylish People; La Stampa, Italy: World’s 10 Best Dressed Men. Shanghvi’s new novel, The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, nominated for the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize, has just been published in Italy, and will be published in America in September this year.