May 13, 2008

Three acclaimed faculty authors and six students in the Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing will participate in a three-part creative nonfiction reading series, “The Problem of Memory,” at California State University, Fresno.

English faculty Steven Church (Thursday, March 15), John Hales (March 29) and Lillian Faderman (April 13) will be the featured presenters in the series, which aims to explore the difficulties of using memory and imagination in nonfiction writing.

Each reading is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the Alice Peters Auditorium in the University Business Center. The MFA program is co-hosting the series with the College of Arts and Humanities and the San Joaquin Literary Association, a student organization of the English Department.

The series idea originated with Church, a first-year MFA faculty member and an assistant professor of English, who “imagined the series as a creative dialogue on an issue in the genre that all writers have to deal with.” Church won the 2006 Colorado Book Award in creative nonfiction for his memoir “The Guinness Book of Me.”

Church, who kicks off the series with student readers James Espinoza and Jefferson Beavers, also liked the idea of a series that directly tied the work of MFA students with the work of their faculty mentors in a public forum.

Hales, who will read with students David Cicoletti and Lisa Lieberman, wrote “Shooting Polaris: A Personal Survey in the American West.” His recent essay, “What Remains,” was named among the notable nonfiction works in “Best American Essays 2006.”

Faderman, who will read with students Burlee Vang and Stacy C. Brand, co-authored “Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws,” “Power Politics” and “Lipstick Lesbians.” She has published multiple works that have broken ground in creative nonfiction.

Funding for the series is provided by the MFA program and by Poets & Writers Inc., through a grant from the James Irvine Foundation.

For details, contact the Department of English at 559.278.2553.