The Northwestern University Master of Arts in Creative Writing program's Annual Author / Student reading featuring faculty mentor Tara Ison

Tara Ison's first novel, A Child out of Alcatraz (Faber & Faber, Inc.), was a Finalist for the 1997 Los Angeles Times Book Awards, "Best First Fiction." Her new novel, The List , will be released by Scribner in March 2007. Her short fiction, essays and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Tin House, The Kenyon Review, Nerve.com, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly , Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine and Book Review, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune , the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies. She is also the co-writer of the movie Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead. She is the recipient of Yaddo fellowships, Pushcart Prize nominations, a Rotary Foundation Scholarship for International Study, a Brandeis National Women's Committee Award, a Thurber House Fiction Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, and the Simon Blattner Fellowship from Northwestern University.

MCW student readers, Heather Dewar, Rosemary Harp, and Andrea Uptmor will also share their work.

"A Conversation with Author and Political Activist Boubacar Boris Diop"

Sponsored by the Center for the Writing Arts, French Interdisciplinary Group, Department of French and Italian,The Writing Program, Mellon Foundation's Claims of Theory Workshop, The Program of African Studies.

Boubacar Boris Diop is one of Senegal's most prominent contemporary writers. His literary production spans the period from 1981 to the present. In addition to his literary work, he has authored several political texts and has become a prominent voice in debates on the politics of Francophonie. After the completion of his novel in 2000 on the genocide in Rwanda, The Book of Bones (2006), he turned to Senegal's other national language, Wolof, with his novel Domi Golo but returned to French in his powerful 2006 novel, Kaveena. During his visit at Northwestern, Diop will hold a reading of his latest work, discussions with students and faculty about the politics of writing.

A Reading from, "Music of the Sirens"

Inna Naroditskaya

Coordinator, in Musicology Program and specialist in Azerbaijanian and Eastern music cultures, Russian music, gender studies, and diasporas at Northwestern University. Author, articles and reviews in Ethnomusicology and Asian Music as well as essays and articles in Azerbaijanian and Russian publications; producer of numerous radio programs. Recipient of Center for the Education of Women prize, Rackham research grant, and funding from the International Institute and School of Music at the University of Michigan.

Josh Weiner reads from his new book of verse From the Book of Giants

Q & A session along with reception will follow

Joshua Weiner is the author of The World's Room and From the Book of Giants (Chicago). He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His poems and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry, The Nation, The American Scholar, Village Voice, Chicago Tribune, Threepenny Review, Poetry, TriQuarterly, Yale Review, Chicago Review, Colorado Review, Washington Post, Slate, and elsewhere. He teaches at the University of Maryland and serves as poetry editor at Tikkun. Weiner is a Northwestern alum (WCAS '85) and was a member of the English Department faculty 1998-2001.

"A Conversation about Contemporary Adaptations and Productions of Classic Plays with Julieanne Ehre"

Julieanne Ehre is the Artistic Director of Greasy Joan & Co. where she has directed The Oresteia, House of Bernarda Alba, The Nose, Antigone, The Lady From the Sea, Dreams of Desire: Classic Short Stories and Marisol by Jose Rivera for the company. She has directed for Lincoln Center Theatre's Directors Lab, Victory Gardens, Curious Theatre Branch, Chicago Dramatists Workshop, and Silk Road Theatre Project, among others. She is part-time faculty at The Theatre School at DePaul University and also teaches at the Victory Gardens Training Center. Ehre served as assistant director to Tina Landau at Steppenwolf Theatre and to Mary Zimmerman on the Broadway transfer of Metamorphoses.

"Writing Ancient Texts"

This series is co-sponsored by the Teagle Foundation, the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities (generously supported by a Mellon Foundation Grant), the Classical Traditions Initiative, the Department of Classics, the Center for the Writing Arts, and the Department of Theatre at Northwestern University.

Robert Auletta's work was most recently seen at the A.R.T. in Tartuffe and The Oresteia (both directed by François Rochaix). His plays have been produced in theatres across the U.S., including the Yale Repertory Theatre, A.R.T. New Stages, the Joseph Papp Public Theater, The Production Company, Cafe La Mama, the Victory Gardens Theater, and elsewhere. His two one-act plays, Stops and Virgins, won a Village Voice Obie Award for distinguished playwriting in 1983. Ajax, his modern version of Sophocles' tragedy, directed by Peter Sellars in 1985, was produced at the Kennedy Center and La Jolla Playhouse, toured extensively in Europe, and received a Hollywood Drama Logue Award. His Gulf War version of Aeschylus' The Persians, also directed by Peter Sellars, was first presented at the 1993 Salzburg Festival, and then at the Edinburgh Festival, the Mark Taper Forum, and in Paris and Berlin. Mr. Auletta is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Playwriting Grants, and a New York State Foundation Grant. He teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York, at the Yale School of Drama, and at the Harvard University summer writing program.

A Panel Disussion about: "Translating Greek Tragedy"

Join Robert Auletta, School of Visual Arts; Alan Shapiro, University of North Carolina; and Reginald Gibbons, Northwestern University as they discuss the process and practice of translating Greek tradegy.

This series is co-sponsored by the Teagle Foundation, the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities (generously supported by a Mellon Foundation Grant), the Classical Traditions Initiative, the Department of Classics, the Center for the Writing Arts, and the Department of Theatre at Northwestern University.

Stuart Dybek

A master of the short story, Stuart Dybek (MFA, University of Iowa) harks back in his fiction to his early memories of 1950s and 60s Chicago, traversing the geography of its neighborhoods with a blend of realism, lyricism, and emotion. Adolescent boys not only map out the city's invisible borders on foot and in car, they ingest its songs, its smells, and tastes, offering indirect commentary on community, immigration, and displacement. His collections include Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, The Coast of Chicago, and most recently, I Sailed With Magellan, a novel-in-stories. In 2004, The Coast of Chicago was the featured title for "One Book, One Chicago," a city-wide book club involving directed reading programs in city libraries and high schools. Also in 2004, I Sailed With Magellan was awarded the prize in adult fiction from the Society of Midland Authors, and was selected as notable book by both the New York Times and the American Library Association. The winner of a Lannan Prize, a PEN/Malamud award, a Guggenheim, and several O. Henry Prizes, Dybek has published in numerous anthologies, and magazines such as Harper's and The New Yorker. A longtime faculty member at Western Michigan University, Stuart Dybek now teaches at Northwestern University as its first Distinguished Writer in Residence.

"So You Want to Write...A Song"

Alice Peacock, Krista Detor and Dylan Rice

Do you have an idea for a song but just don't know how to make it come alive? Have you always wondered how people 'make it' in the music business?

Join these talented singer/songwriters, who are making their musical mark nationally and internationally, as they share their journey and process for writing songs, getting them published and most importantly getting them heard. There will be Q & A, plus performances by each artist.

Alice Peacock - "Who I am is intriguing music and thoughtful lyrics from someone who certainly has something to say." - George Harris, All That Jazz
http://www.alicepeacock.com/

Krista Detor - "Mudshow is a small miracle-intensive, wonderful...music.. ...She would be..Good on every stage in the world.." - Rolling Stone
http://www.kristadetor.com/

Dylan Rice - "Rice writes nicely focused pop songs, sings expressively, and is backed by an excellent band. What's not to like?"-The Illinois Entertainer
http://www.dylanrice.com/home.html

A reading from, "Exporting Press Freedom: Economic and Editorial Dilemmas in International Media Assistance"

Craig LaMay

Assistant professor and faculty associate at Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research; former editorial director of the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center and editor of Media Studies Journal; and a former newspaper reporter. LaMay's work has appeared in New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, and many other places. Author or editor of several books, among them Exporting Press Freedom: Economic and Editorial Dilemmas in International Media Assistance; Journalism and the Problem of Privacy; and Abandoned in the Wasteland: Children, Television and the First Amendment with Newton Minow. Research and writing interests concern journalism in democratizing and post-conflict societies; commercial and public broadcast regulation; and competition between non-profit and for-profit firms.