Friday: Graduating Students to Read at Urban Arts Festival

This Friday, May 17, as part of Columbia College's annual Manifest Urban Arts Festival, graduating students will showcase their work.  Along with B.A. Poetry & Nonfiction showcases and an MFA Poetry showcase, the inaugural class of Columbia's MFA in Nonfiction Program will read from their graduate theses as part of the festival.

Readings will take place at the Sherwood Conservatory Recital Hall, 1212 S. Michigan Ave., from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Maddison Hamil to Read at 33

MADDISON HAMIL is an MFA Candidate in the Nonfiction Program at Columbia College Chicago, where she also teaches first year writing, works in the Fashion Department and serves as an editor for Hotel Amerika.  She loves a good list and romance novels are a guilty pleasure.

April 16: Amy Leach & Dinty Moore

A forthcoming reading, sponsored by Columbia College Chicago's programs in Nonfiction:



Photo by Lynn Duggan

 AMY LEACH is the author of Things That Are, published by Milkweed Editions.  She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Iowa, and her work has appeared in Best American Essays, A Public Space, Orion, and The Gettysburg Review, among other journals.  She has been recognized with the Whiting Writers' Award and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award.  She lives in Montana.

Photo by Renita Romasco

DINTY W. MOORE is author of The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life, as well as the memoir Between Panic & Desire, winner of the Grub Street Nonfiction Book Prize in 2009. He also edited The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction: Advice and Essential Exercises from Respected Writers, Editors, and Teachers. Moore has published essays and stories in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Harpers, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Iron Horse Literary Review, and Crazyhorse, among numerous other venues. A professor of nonfiction writing at Ohio University, Moore has won many awards for his writing, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction. He edits Brevity, an online journal of flash nonfiction, and lives in Athens, Ohio, where he grows heirloom tomatoes and edible dandelions.

Mark Augustine & Emily Schikora at the 33 Reading Series

MARK AUGUSTINE is an MFA Candidate in the Nonfiction Program at Columbia College Chicago.  He was prom king in high school.

EMILY SCHIKORA is an MFA Candidate in Nonfiction at Columbia College, where she is also a Graduate Student Instructor.  She has a chapbook, "I Thought I Was Your Favorite," by Habit Books.  From Fairbanks, Alaska, Emily currently divides her time between Portland, Oregon, and Chicago. 

Caitlynn Martinez-McWhorter, Dauren Velez to Read at 33 Reading Series

CAITLYNN MARTINEZ-MCWHORTER, a native of the Chicago suburbs, is currently an MFA Candidate in Nonfiction Writing at Columbia College Chicago where she teaches First-Year Writing.  She can do a one handed pushup, has potty trained a wombat, and owns over 200 pairs of shoes.

DAUREN VELEZ is a Nonfiction Candidate at Columbia Chicago, with a background in the Liberal Arts from St. John's College in New Mexico.  She is interested in using the essay form to explore the subject of time, which of course an incredibly straightforward and simple endeavor.

Colleen O'Connor at The Dollhouse #19

Join us as we watch the brilliant Colleen O'Connor read her work at The Dollhouse Reading Series this Saturday, January 12!

According to The Dollhouse's Tumblr, "Colleen’s essays can be jarring, urgent, and cutting, yet remain all the while sincere and incredibly personal. That’s something. And she does a mean karaoke."  Go get 'em, Colleen!

Brett Slezak in The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review

Nonfiction Candidate Brett Slezak has published new work in The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, titled "A Supposedly Relaxing Thing That Gives Me A Really Serious Case of the Heebie-Jeebies."  The piece is humorous, tickling in all the right spots, and can be read here.

Congratulations, Brett!