Breyten Breytenbach, Philip Levine, Glyn Maxwell, Brian Morton, Sharon Olds, Irini Spanidou, and Chuck Wachtel — all members of the New York University Creative Writing Program faculty this fall — will read from their work on Thursday, December 1, at 7 p.m. in an event that will benefit Share Our Strength’s domestic anti-hunger initiatives. The reading will take place at NYU’s Lipton Hall, 108 W. 3rd Street. Voluntary donations are requested at the door. For further information call 212.998.8816.
Breyten Breytenbach, Distinguished Global Professor of Creative Writing at NYU, is the author of numerous works, including A Season in Paradise and The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, two books in the four-volume memoir of his South African odyssey — from 1975 until 1982 he was a political prisoner there. Known as the finest living poet of the Afrikaans language, Breytenbach is the author of such verse collections as The Iron Cow Must Sweat, Footscript, and, most recently, Lady One.
Philip Levine is the author of 16 collections of poetry, including What Work Is, which won the National Book Award for Poetry; The Simple Truth, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize; and his most recent book, Breath. Currently he is the distinguished Poet-in-Residence in the Creative Writing Program at NYU.
Glyn Maxwell, currently poetry editor of The New Republic, is the author of several books of poems, including The Nerve, Time’s Fool: A Tale in Verse, Out of the Rain, and The Sugar Mile. He also has authored plays and the novel, Blue Burneau.
Novelist Brian Morton has written The Dylanist, Starting Out in the Evening, finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award, and, most recently, A Window Across the River. He is the recipient of the Koret Jewish Book Award for fiction.
Sharon Olds, professor and permanent faculty member in the Creative Writing Program, is a former New York State Poet Laureate and the recipient of the Harriet Monroe Poetry Award. Her collections of poetry include The Father, The Dead and the Living, The Wellspring, and Blood, Tin, Straw.
Irini Spanidou is the author of two highly acclaimed novels, Fear and God’s Snake. She has taught creative writing at NYU, Sarah Lawrence College, and Brooklyn College.
Chuck Wachtel’s books include Because We Are Here, a collection of short stories and novellas, and the novels Joe the Engineer, which won the PEN/Hemingway citation, and The Gates. His most recent book is What Happens to Me, a collection of poems and short prose.
This reading is the final event in the fall NYU Creative Writing Program Reading Series.
The NYU Creative Writing Program, with permanent faculty members E.L. Doctorow, Paule Marshall, Breyten Breytenbach, Philip Levine, and Sharon Olds, has distinguished itself for over three decades as a leading national center for the study of literature and writing. The Creative Writing Program Director is Melissa Hammerle. The Reading Series, sponsored in cooperation with the NYU Book Centers and the Fales Collection at NYU, is a vital component of the Writing Program, bringing both established and new writers to NYU.
The NYU Creative Writing Program Reading Series is made possible by generous support from the Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund, established in The New York Community Trust by the founders of the Reader’s Digest Association. Additional support is provided by Robert E. Holmes.