The Valpo Core

The first Wordfest event of ‘09-’10 is just around the corner.  Join us to hear Michael Martone, fiction writer and essayist, read from his latest work.  Hoosier by birth and degree, Martone now teaches at the University of Alabama.  Come check out his moves.

“We are forced to live in our eyes, in the outposts of our consciousness, the borders of our being. Forget the heart. In the flatness, everywhere is surface.”

when: Mon the 28th, 7 p.m.

where: Brauer Museum of Art

what else: refreshments and book signing to follow

what else else: CORE 5th hour approved

Wordfest and The Lighter present THE CABARET!

“But what is this thing called cabaret?”

cab~a~ret (kab??r?)

2b. A restaurant or night-club in which entertainment is provided as an accompaniment to a meal; also, the entertainment so provided, a floor-show.

As in, “He spends most of his extra money at pool parlors, Austrian villages and cabaret shows,” or “Those melancholy places, the night clubs and cabarets.”  (Thanks, OED!)

Or better yet, as in, “The Lighter and Wordfest proudly present their third annual Cabaret, at which no money will be collected and no melancholy will be found (or that which is found will be tidily swept up and packaged into art).”

Date: Saturday, April 4th

Time: 6:00-9:00 p.m.

Place: Refectory in Mueller Hall

Fare: Dinner provided free!

Program: a variety of musical, spoken word and visual media acts by students, faculty and staff

Rumors: a banjo in the hands of Prof. Owens, a guitar in those of Prof. Sponberg; the vocal stylings of Prof. Buinicki and Prof Childress; Nancy Drew’s alter ego channeled by Prof. Schuette-Hoffman; and more, oh, so much more…

She’s written about a character fascinated with fire and a character who wears nothing but feathers in the streets of New York.  She’s also one of us–a VU grad.  Don’t miss Rene Steinke reading from her newest novel-in-progress next Wednesday, February 18th.  See her bio below.

Harre Union Ballroom A (West)

7:00 pm

Refreshments and book signing to follow.

Rene Steinke is the author of the novels The Fires and Holy Skirts, which was a 2005 Finalist for the National Book Award and listed as one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. Her non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Bookforum, and in anthologies. She has taught at Valparaiso University, Columbia University, the New School University, and is currently Associate Professor of English at Fairleigh Dickinson University. From 2002-2007, she was Editor of The Literary Review, an international literary magazine. A Valparaiso alum (1986), she was a member of Christ College, an English major, and one of the editors of The Lighter.

We’re on the cusp of the VU poets’ Wordfest reading–it’s tonight!  Don’t forget to come out for some word and image!

Come see and hear Profs. John Ruff, Ed Byrne, Kathleen Mullen, Catherine Tufariello, and Allison Schuette-Hoffman read from their work!

Brauer Museum
Tues, Jan 27th
7 p.m.

Find out what they’ve been up to when they’re not in their classrooms or behind their desks.

Refreshments will be served.

Please note that the Accabellas will not be singing at this event, contrary to what was previously stated.

As part of Wordfest’s participation in the 150th anniversary of VU, we’re tooting our own horns and showcasing talent from within the faculty and staff.  Come out…

to the Brauer Museum
on Tues, Jan 27th
at 7 p.m.

and find out what John Ruff, Ed Byrne, Kathleen Mullen, Catherine Tufariello, and Allison Schuette-Hoffman have been up to when they’re not in their classrooms or behind their desks.

Refreshments will be served and the event is 5th hour approved.

The Accabellas will be warming the place up, so come early to catch their music and browse the art work.

Tuesday, Nov 11th
7:00 pm
Brauer Museum

Book signing to follow.  Refreshments served.  Free and open to the public.

Literary citizens,

Get a taste, a preview, a trailer of the poetry to come, right here, right now:

IT’S THE FIRST THING

They teach you in lifeguard courses:
a person will take you down, though you
are trying to help, a person will hurt you,
he will drown you, despite himself.
This is what panic will do, even to the most
sane, its sharp strings under every last
fingernail and pulled taut by circumstance,
say, a sandbar you didn’t know would drop
out or a wave from nowhere, panic will yank
its cords, will make you dance its terrible jig
and when someone, even a strapping someone,
comes to help, panic begins its buoyant song,
gumming your reason, and even if you
have been the gentlest soul, swerving to miss
raccoons on the road and bending
to kiss the paraplegic women in a home,
you will scratch and latch and grasp
that someone with a fervor you could almost taste,
tangy and succinct, like a fine mustard, firm
with the gut of its tiny seed, golden as the sun’s gut,
ferment of a season you anticipate, one
you have yet to know, one you must
and have yet to know.

That’s a taste for you of the poetic stylings of Susanna Childress, a first year Lilly Fellow at Valparaiso University and our next Wordfest reader. She was awarded the 2005 Brittingham Prize in Poetry for her book, Jagged with Love, chosen by former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins.

Mark your calendars for next week. You won’t want to miss it.

Get your literature live.

Attention literary citizens!

It is time to make another bold foray into the public sphere of art!  Hopefully, many of you were able to enjoy the fictional stylings of VU’s noted alum, Rick Barton, in September.  This month Wordfest proudly brings you our very own colleague and professor, the award winning Walter Wangerin, Jr.  Some of you may know Wangerin from his sermons in the Chapel; others may know him from his work in the classroom.  If you haven’t been introduced to him at all, you’re in for a treat.  Wangerin is a master story teller and writes across the genres.  Next week he’ll be reading his poetry.

Come out and take a stand for the value of literature!

Tuesday, Oct 14th
7:00 pm
Duesenberg Recital Hall, VUCA
Book signing to follow.  Refreshments served.  Free and open to the public.  CORE approved.

Sponsored by the Department of English and the Cultural Arts Committee.

Some biographical info:

Walter Wangerin, Jr’s first novel, The Book of the Dun Cow, won both the National Book Award (Am.B.A., 1980) and The New York Times Best Children’s Book of the Year, and was followed by a sequel, The Book of Sorrows. In The Book of God, Wangerin uniquely sets forth the Biblical story in its own cultural and social settings. His collections of stories, Ragman and Other Cries of Faith; The Manger Is Empty; Miz Lil and the Chronicles of Grace; and In the Days of the Angels have reached a wide audience.

In his most recent book, Father and Son: Finding Freedom, Wangerin and his adopted son, Matthew share their deeply personal story.  Each in his own words narrate the history of their relationship and how they found new meaning–and new identities–through times of brokenness, hope and rediscovery.  Father and Son is a profound meditation on fatherly love and a son’s independence–and one family’s search for reconciliation.

Currently, Wangerin holds the Jochum Chair at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, where he teaches literature and creative writing, and is writer-in-residence.

Novelist and film critic Rick Barton will read from his work as part of the Wordfest visiting writers series on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 in the Brauer Museum at 7:00 p.m.   Wordfest events are sponsored by the English department and the Cultural Arts Committee.  They are free and open to the public. Rick Barton is an award-winning writer and critic.  He holds a B.A. from Valparaiso University and took degrees from UCLA and the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.  A Professor of English and former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, he teaches graduate classes in fiction writing and now serves as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs at University of New Orleans.

A winner of the Louisiana Division of the Arts Literature Prize, Mr. Barton is author of the novels The El Cholo Feeling Passes, Courting Pandemonium, and With Extreme Prejudice.  His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and in the anthologies Something in Common and Above Ground.  His novel A House Divided won the William Faulkner Prize in fiction.

More information: http://www.valpo.edu/english/news/wfbarton.php

Wordfest event: the Accabellas open for award-winning fiction writer, Margaret McMullan

When: Thurs, Feb 21st at 6 pm

Where: Brauer Museum

What: music, art, literature, refreshments, book signing

COME OUT OF CURIOSITY; STAY FOR THE CULTURE.

McMullan has most recently published When I Crossed No-Bob (2007), the sequel to her first young-adult novel about a Southern family during the Civil War. When I Crossed No-Bob shares some of the same characters but occurs during the period of Reconstruction. McMullan also writes adult novels, short stories, and essays. She is currently a professor of English at the University of Evansville, in Evansville, Indiana, where she lives with her husband, Patrick O’Connor and their son, James.The three of them have work in an upcoming issue of National Geographic for Kids.

Check her work out at: http://www.margaretmcmullan.com/index.html

“It’s about fear, death, and technology. A comedy, of course.”

Thus spoke Don DeLillo about his prize winning novel, White Noise. Has he got it right? Come find out.

John Duvall
Lecture on White Noise
Monday the 12th at 8 pm
VUCA–Duesenberg Recital Hall
Refreshments to Follow
CORE approved

A Wordfest event… and you know you like those!