ATHENS, Ga. – The University of Georgia’s Creative Writing Program will host a number of readings on campus in the coming two weeks. All readings will begin at 4:30 p.m. in room 265 of Park Hall.
A new poetry magazine titled Skein will be launched on Monday, May 12. At least a dozen contributors to the first issue will read poems from the magazine; the readings will be followed by a light reception. Founded and edited by UGA undergraduate Seth Parker, Skein is an artfully produced magazine devoted to poets who live or have recently read in Athens. Contributors to the first issue include undergraduate and graduate students at UGA, UGA alumni, UGA faculty, local poets and such recent visiting writers as Tomaz Salamun, Ethan Paquin, Joshua Beckman and Matthew Rohrer. The first issue of Skein is limited to a print run of 100 copies, each with its own hand-printed cover design. An issue costs $5. This event is free and open to the public.
Novelist Philip Lee Williams will read from his work on Tuesday, May 13. The reading is free and open to the public. Williams is the author of eight novels and two works of non-fiction, most recently the novel, The True and Authentic History of Jenny Dorset. He received the Townsend Prize for fiction and was named Georgia Author of the Year in Fiction. Williams is an adjunct faculty member in creative writing and is director of public relations for the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.
Athens-based performance artist and writer Tara Rebele will perform her “And I’m Not Jenny” series on Wednesday, May 14. Admission is $5. “And I’m Not Jenny” is a series of monologues by women who are not Jenny talking about their experiences not being Jenny. Rebele has performed selections from the series in many places around the country, including San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta and Boston. Her performance texts have been published in How2 and Slope. She is a member of the Warehouse Collective and of ICE (Institute for Creative Exploration). For more information, visit www.tararebele.com.
Tomaz Salamun, Slovenia’s foremost living poet, will read from his work on Thursday, May 15. Admission is $5. Salamun has published twenty-six books of poetry, which have been translated into almost every European language. His collections in English include Feast and The Four Questions of Melancholy: New and Selected Poems, which the New Yorker called “playful and brooding, meditative and declamatory, these poems affirm Salamun’s status as a major Central European poet.” Many of Salamun’s poems acknowledge the turmoil in the former Republic of Yugoslavia. The Kirkus Reviews call Salamun “a wry fantasist with the surrealist gift for striking unlikely juxtapositions, his best work shows flashes of a sardonic, almost caustic wit. Until recently, Salamun was the cultural attaché to the Slovenian Consulate General in New York City. He lives in Ljubljana.
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