McNeese MFA

David Middleton The Leo Luke Marcello Poetry Reading Series	September 16, 2006 Stream Alumni Center
A.E. Stallings Poetry	October 21, 2006 Stream Alumni Center
W.D. Snodgrass The Frank Granger Poetry Series	October 26, 2006 Stream Alumni Center
Dr. Stella Nesanovich McNeese Honors College Poetry Reading	November 3, 2006 McNeese Business Conference Center
Jennifer Reeser Poetry	March 9, 2007 BBC
George Makana Clark Fiction	March 17, 2007 BBC
Morri Creech Poetry	March 27, 2007 BBC
Antonya Nelson Fiction	April 21, 2007 BBC
Robert Olen Butler Fiction	May 1, 2007 BBC
The Graduate Reading Fiction	May 11, 2007 BBC

David Middleton

Poet David Middleton will give a free poetry reading from his works at 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16, in the Stream Alumni Center at McNeese State University as the first reader of the Leo Luke Marcello Poetry Reading Series. The series, sponsored by the McNeese Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, was established in honor of the late poet and McNeese professor of English Dr. Leo Luke Marcello. The presentation, titled "Where Poetry Can Come From: A Reading with Commentary," will showcase poems from Middleton's several books of poetry including, most recently, "The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy." Middleton's poems often take his native state of Louisiana as their subject, meditating on its landscape and culture. He has been the recipient of many awards and grants for his work, including the prestigious Allen Tate Award from The Sewanee Review. Middleton currently teaches at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux.

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A.E. Stallings

Poet A.E. Stallings will give a free poetry reading from her works at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20, in the Stream Alumni Center at McNeese State University. The reading is sponsored by the McNeese Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. Stallings' first book, "Archaic Smile," won the prestigious Richard Wilbur Award, selected by Dana Gioia. Her second book, "Hapax," has been reviewed favorably in the best journals, including the New York Times and the Hudson Review, which has called her "the best formal poet under the age of 40." She has been the recipient of a number of prizes, including the Pushcart Prize, as well as the Eunice Tietjens and Fredrick Bock prizes offered through Poetry Magazine. Stallings has even composed the Latin music for the soundtrack of the Paramount film, "The Sum of All Fears." Stallings, a native of Decatur, Ga., currently resides in Athens, Greece, with her husband, John Psaropoulos, editor of the Athens News.

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W.D. Snodgrass

Internationally acclaimed, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet W. D. Snodgrass will give a free poetry reading from his works at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26, in the Stream Alumni Center at McNeese State University. The reading is sponsored through the Frank Granger Poetry Series of the McNeese Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. Snodgrass has been one of the shaping forces in American poetry. His first book, "Heart's Needle," won the Pulitzer Prize and was a key influence in forming what later became known as the "confessional school" of poetry. His work, at once formal, eloquent, tender and emotional, has been praised in America and abroad for its richness and formal precision. Snodgrass, retired from a life of teaching, currently divides his time between northern New York state and Mexico.

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Dr. Stella Nesanovich

Nesanovich will read from her current work as well as from her book, "Vespers at Mount Angel: Poems," published by Xavier Review Press.

Nesanovich is a widely published author whose works have appeared in such journals as The Southern Review, Christianity and Literature, Windover, the Louisiana Review, Anglican Theological Review and Xavier Review.

She is also the author of a book of poetry on St. Hildegard and the editor of a book of poems dedicated to the late McNeese professor Leo Luke Marcello.

She has received several awards for her teaching and writing, including a Louisiana Division of the Arts Artist Fellowship.

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Jennifer Reeser

Internationally recognized poet Jennifer Reeser, a resident of Westlake, has quietly published two exceptional collections of poetry in just three years. Alabaster Flask won The 2003 Word Press First Book Poetry Prize, and no less a luminary than X.J. Kennedy declared that the book “should have been nominated for a Pulitzer.” Poems in her more recent Winterproof (2005) explore the spectrum between “austere bitterness and quiet joy.”

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George Makana Clark

South African novelist and short-story writer George Makana Clark has received international acclaim for his tales of the harshness of war and the tenderness of love. His work has appeared widely in literary magazines, notably Black Warrior Review, The Georgia Review, Glimmer Train, The Southern Review, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope: All Story. Clark is a 2006 O. Henry Prize winner, a recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship for Fiction Writing, and a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing and for the National Magazine Award for Fiction. His collection of stories, The Small Bees’ Honey was published by White Pine Press. Clark is currently an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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Morri Creech

Morri Creech’s second collection, Field Knowledge, is winner of the 2005 Anthony Hecht Prize. Writing for Booklist, critique Ray Olson praises the book for its “infusion of the sacred into the profane” as well as its humor. He concludes, “Throughout, there is a use of the European poetic tradition that is as gratifying and profound as it is assured. This man's good.” Creech directs the poetry component of McNeese’s MFA in Creative Writing Program.

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Antonya Nelson

One of America’s most perceptive authors, novelist and short story writer Antonya Nelson has received accolades from every place that matters. She’s the recipient of a Flannery O’Connor Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an O. Henry Prize, and a Pen/Nelgren Award. The New Yorker named her one of twenty “Writers for the 21st Century.” According to Bookmarks Magazine, her new collection Some Fun has received widespread praise for Nelson’s “way with metaphor, her rich characterizations, and, most prominently, her avoidance of clichй on the well-worn turf of American families.” She is this year’s Ada. D. Vincent Visiting Writer.

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Robert Olen Butler

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and habitual resident of Lake Charles, Robert Olen Butler has been called a “commanding and ingenious writer with a love of high-concept undertakings” by Booklist. The most recent proof of this is his bold new collection of short shorts entitled Severance, in which each piece is the internal monologue of a historical figure who was beheaded.

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