CHAMPAIGN,Ill. – A celebrated poet who spent five years living and working among the Amish and two authors whose work has explored topics ranging from the workings of historical figures’ minds to circus life will be the speakers during the Fall 2010 Carr Reading Series on the University of Illinois campus.
Celebrated poet G.C. Waldrep will kick off the series on Oct. 19. The second reading, on Nov. 16, will feature two authors – Cathy Day and Angela Woodward – whose work has appeared in Ninth Letter, the U. of I.’s literary journal.
Waldrep’s poetry collection “Goldbeater’s Skin” (Center for Literary Publishing) won the 2003 Colorado Prize for Poetry. He is the author of two other collections of poems, “Archicembalo” (Tupelo Press, 2009) and “Disclamor” (BOA Editions, 2007). His fourth collection, “Your Father on the Train of Ghosts,” a collaborative work with poet John Gallaher, is to be published by BOA Editions in April 2011.
Waldrep also is the author of a nonfiction book on labor activism, “Southern Workers and the Search for Community: Spartanburg County, S.C.” (U. of I. Press, 2000).
A 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Literature, Waldrep has garnered several residencies at artists’ communities and awards from the Academy of American Poets, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the Poetry Society of America.
In the late 1990s, Waldrep worked as a baker, carpenter’s helper and window maker while he was a member of the New Order Amish Community at Yanceyville, N.C.
Waldrep is a member of the Old Order River Brethren, a group with conservative beliefs about simplicity of lifestyle that are similar to the practices of the Old Order Amish, yet does not eschew modern conveniences such as using electricity from public utilities and ownership of automobiles.
Waldrep is a professor of English at Bucknell University, where he teaches creative writing and serves as editor-at-large for the Kenyon Review.
Day is the author of “Comeback Season: How I Learned to Play the Game of Love” (Free Press, 2008), a memoir about life as a single woman and the Indianapolis Colts’ Super Bowl season, and “The Circus in Winter” (Harcourt, 2004), a fictional history of her hometown of Peru, Ind. The latter was a finalist for the GLCA New Writer Award, the Great Lakes Book Award and the Story Prize. Theater students at Ball State University, where Day teaches English, adapted “The Circus in Winter” into a musical production during the spring 2010 semester.
Day’s work has been broadcast on National Public Radio’s “Selected Shorts” and “Studio 360” programs and has appeared in various literary journals, including American Fiction, Ninth Letter and Southern Review.
Woodward is the author of the short-story collection “The Human Mind” (Ravenna Press, 2007), which explores the intellect of historical figures – including Edgar Allen Poe and philosopher Robert Hooke – as well as fictional characters. Her fiction has appeared in numerous journals – among them Diagram, elimae, and 13th Moon – and an excerpt from her forthcoming book “The End of the Fire Cult” (Ravenna Press, 2010) was published in the spring/summer 2010 issue of Ninth Letter. Her work has been adapted for the stage and performed at Chicago’s Rhinoceros Theater Festival.
Woodward teaches writing and is director of the Writing Center at Edgewood College.
The Carr Reading Series is made possible by a gift from Robert J. and Katherin Carr.
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