Grand Valley Writers Series

Authors Vievee Francis and Matthew Olzmann are the next featured writers for the Grand Valley Writers Series set for Mon. Feb. 27.

The presentation will take place at the Grand Valley State University’s Pew Campus in downtown Grand Rapids. There will be a craft talk from 6 – 7 p.m. at the DeVos Center in room 203 E and then a reading and book signing from 7:30 – 8:50 p.m. at the University Club in the DeVos Center.

Francis is the author of three books of poetry, Blue-Tail Fly, Horse in the Dark and the recently released Forest Primeval, which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. She is the recipient of the Rona Jaffe Prize and a Kresge Fellowship. Francis’ work has appeared in numerous publications including Best American Poetry, Poetry Magazine, and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, among others. She is currently an associate professor of English at Dartmouth College and an associate editor for Callaloo.

Olzmann is the author of Mezzanines, selected for the Kundiman Prize. His second book, Contradictions in the Design, was released in 2016. Olzmann received scholarships and fellowships from Kundiman, the Kresge Arts Foundation and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His poems, stories and essays have appeared in Kenyon Review, New England Review, Necessary Fiction, Brevity, Southern Review and elsewhere. He teaches in the Master of Fine Arts program for writers at Warren Wilson College.

The Grand Valley Writers Series, which brings award-winning authors from around the world to campus each year, continues for the winter season with a two-for-one showcase of works by two Grand Valley faculty members: Amorak Huey and Caitlin Horrocks.

Grand Valley Writers Series presents Amorak Huey and Caitlin Horrocks Tuesday, Jan. 31, from 6 – 8 p.m., Cook-DeWitt Center located on the Grand Valley State University’s Allendale campus.

Huey, assistant professor of writing at Grand Valley, is the author of the poetry collection Ha Ha Thump (2015) and the chapbook The Insomniac Circus (2014). His poetry and essays have appeared in The Best American Poetry 2012, The Southern Review, Brevity, Poet Lore, The Collagist, The Cincinnati Review, and many other print and digital journals. The written works of Huey recently received prestigious validation when he was one of 37 authors out of a pool of 1,800 to be awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA). Huey said the $25,000 fellowship grant will provide him with the time and space needed to create, revise, conduct research and connect with his readers. Before coming to Grand Valley, Huey worked for more than a decade as an editor and reporter for newspapers in Florida, Kentucky and Michigan, including serving as assistant sports editor for Grand Rapids Press.

Horrocks, associate professor of writing, is a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction. Her debut story collection, This Is Not Your City, was named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and one of the best books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle. Her stories and essays have appeared in anthologies, such as The Best American Short Stories, The PEN/O, Henry Prize Stories, and True Stories, among others. Horrocks’ works have also appeared in journals, such as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and One Story. She also currently serves as the fiction editor of The Kenyon Review while crafting a novel and a second story collection.