CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon State University's Visiting Writers Series will host its fifth Editorial Festival on Friday, April 24, in the Memorial Union, 2501 S.W. Jefferson Way, Corvallis.

The annual event is designed to engage students and community members in discussions about contemporary writing, publishing and media studies. This year's theme is writing and publishing a first book.

At 4 p.m., professional writers and editors Geffrey Davis, T Clutch Fleischmann and Nina McConigley will participate in a roundtable discussion about how their first books came to be, from manuscript to editorial meetings to book launch. Caroline Casey, managing director of Coffee House Press, will moderate the discussion.

At 7:30 p.m., the authors will give readings from their first books. Both events will take place the Memorial Union's Journey Room and are free and open to the public.

Davis is an OSU alumnus who teaches in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas. His collection, "Revising the Storm," won the Poulin Poetry Prize. His other honors include the Halley Poetry Prize, the Dogwood Prize in Poetry, the Wabash Prize for Poetry, the Steinberg Memorial/Academy of American Poets Prize, and a fellowship from the Cave Canem foundation.

Fleischmann, of Seattle, is the author of "Syzygy, Beauty" and a nonfiction editor at DIAGRAM. A contributing editor at EssayDaily, Fleischmann's critical and creative work has appeared in places such as The Brooklyn Rail, the PEN Poetry Series, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

McConigley is the author of the story collection "Cowboys and East Indians," which won the 2014 PEN Open Book Award and the High Plains Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Orion, Salon, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short Fiction and The Asian American Literary Review. She teaches at the University of Wyoming and at the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston.

Casey has a background in marketing, publicity, and acquisitions, including stints at Sarabande Books and Stanford University Press, and holds an MFA from the nonfiction writing program at the University of Iowa.

The Visiting Writers Series is supported by the Valley Library and the OSU Press; the OSU School of Writing, Literature, and Film; the College of Liberal Arts; Kathy Brisker and Tim Steele; and Grass Roots Books and Music.

Source: 

Karen Holmberg, [email protected]

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