Evening Benefits the NYU/Goldwater Hospital Writing Project
On Thursday, April 21, at 7 p.m., New York University’s Creative Writing Program will host an award ceremony and reading to benefit the NYU/Goldwater Hospital Writing Project. Jean Valentine, who won a National Book Award in 2004 for her poetry collection entitled Door in the Mountain, will receive the sixth annual Jean Kennedy Smith NYU Creative Writing Award of Distinction. The award will be presented by Jean Kennedy Smith.
The event takes place at NYU’s Lipton Hall, 108 W. Third Street; voluntary donations are requested at the door. For further information the public may call 212.998.8816.
The award ceremony will include a reading by writers from the NYU/Goldwater Writing Project known as the Golden Writers; the presentation of the award; and a reading by Valentine. The project provides writing workshops for residents of Coler Goldwater, a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challenged. The workshop teachers are graduate students in NYU’s Creative Writing Program, and the proceeds of this benefit reading will provide stipend support for these students as well as help underwrite other program expenses.
Jean Valentine is the author of ten books of poetry, including The Cradle of Real Life, Growing Darkness, Growing Light, The Other Voice: Selected Poems, and The River at Wolf. Her 1965 volume, Dream Barker, won the Yale Younger Poets Prize. She has received numerous grants and awards including a Guggenheim, a Sara Teasdale Award, and an NEA grant. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, NYU, Columbia University, and the 92nd Street Y.
The next event in the NYU Creative Writing Program Spring Reading Series is on April 28 when graduating MFA students will read from their final thesis manuscripts in poetry and fiction.