(3/31/2022) Mark Jarman (faculty), poetry reading & Lorraine López (faculty), fiction reading: 7 PM, Buttrick Hall 101
Mark Jarman was born in 1952 in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. He earned a BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1974 and an MFA from the University of Iowa in 1976. Jarman is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including The Heronry (2017), Bone Fires: New and Selected Poems (2011), Epistles (2007), The Black Riviera (1990), which was awarded the Poets’ Prize in 1991, and Questions for Ecclesiastes (1997), which won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His many honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Robert Frost Fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
Jarman lives with his wife Amy Jarman in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is Centennial Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.
www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mark-jarman
Lorraine M. López is Gertrude Conaway Professor of English, Director of Creative Writing, and Faculty Director of Latino and Latina Studies at Vanderbilt University. With her retirement effective August 16, 2021, she will become Professor of English, Emerita, and Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair, Emerita. For the 2021-22 Academic Year, Lorraine will also serve as Research Professor of English, rounding out 20 years of service to the Vanderbilt community.
In addition to her distinguished teaching career (Harvie Branscombe Distinguished Professor Award, 2016), Lorraine has written seven works of fiction and edited or coedited three essay collections. Her first book, the short story collection, Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories(Curbstone, 2002) won the inaugural Miguel Marmól prize for fiction, and her first novel, Call Me Henri (Curbstone, 2006) was awarded the Paterson Prize for Young Adult Literature in 2007. Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories (BkMk Books, 2009) was a Finalist for the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Prize in Fiction in 2010 and winner of the Texas League of Writers Award for Outstanding Book of Fiction. The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters (Grand Central Press, 2008) and The Realm of Hungry Spirits (Grand Central Press, 2011) were Borders/Las Comadres Selections, and López’s short story collection, The Darling (University of Arizona Press, 2015) was a finalist for the International Latino Book Award. Lorraine’s latest novel is entitled, Postcards From the Gerund State: Stories (BkMk, 2019). Her three edited/coedited essay collections are, An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor or Working-Class Roots(University of Michigan Press, 2009), award-winning, The Other Latin@: Writing against a Singular Identity (University of Arizona Press, 2011), and Rituals of Movement in the Writing of Judith Ortiz Cofer (Caribbean Studies Press, 2012). Lorraine’s work has appeared in multiple anthologies, journals, and other publications. She has served on the board of, and as associate editor for The Afro-Hispanic Review, and co-founded, with Professor William Luis, the Latino and Latina Studies Program. Lorraine is honored to have been the subject of a recent edition of the South Atlantic Review (Spring 2020). She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is at work on multiple writing projects.
http://www.lorraine-lopez.com