Authors to Visit College of DuPage at Free Writers Read Program Oct. 14

Following a new format, the College's Writers Read literary series will include readings and discussions by several acclaimed authors throughout the day on Tuesday, Oct. 14, in the Student Resource Center, Room 2000, on the College's main campus, 425 Fawell Blvd., in Glen Ellyn.

This event is free and open to the public.

Cosponsored by the College's Africa Diaspora, Creative Writing, Native American Studies and Women's Studies committees, this event will feature readings and discussions focused around the theme "Walls and Bridges: The Art and Politics of Identity."

The day will begin at noon with a reading, discussion and book signing by celebrated poet and author Mark Turcotte.

Following Turcotte's presentation, the College's Native American Studies Committee will host a panel discussion on native culture and its historical misrepresentation from 2 to 3 p.m.

From 7 to 8:30 p.m., a reading, discussion and book signing will be held featuring authors Quraysh Lansana, Cin Salach and Christopher Stewart.

Mark Turcotte is the author of four poetry collections, including "The Feathered Heart" and

"Exploding Chippewas." His poems and stories have appeared in a variety of literary journals including Hunger Mountain, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, POETRY, TriQuarterly and Sentence. Turcotte spent his early years on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation in North Dakota and in the migrant camps of the western U.S. Later, he relocated to the area in and around Lansing, Mich., and after finishing school there, he spent the next 15 years traveling the country and working on the road.

Turcotte is the recipient of a Writer's Community Residency from National Writer's Voice and received the 1997 Josephine Gates Kelly Memorial Fellowship from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. He is a recipient of a 2001-2002 Lannan Foundation Literary Completion Grant and received two Literary Fellowships by the Wisconsin Arts Board.

Quraysh Lansana is the author of eight poetry books, a children's book and the editor of eight anthologies. "Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy & Social Justice," which Lansana wrote with coauthor Georgia A. Popoff, was a 2011 NAACP Image Award nominee. A former Professor of Creative Writing at Chicago State University, Lansana also served as director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Writing and currently serves as a faculty member of the Red Earth MFA program in creative writing at Oklahoma University.

Cin Salach is an Illinois Arts Council award recipient, four-time Ragdale fellow, and an Emmy nominee for her work on the PBS documentary "From Schoolboy to Showgirl." For more than 25 years, she has collaborated with musicians, filmmakers and artists in such groups as The Loofah Method, Betty's Mouth and Ten Tongues. In 1996, Salach released her first book of poetry titled "Looking for a Soft Place to Land." Her second collection of poems, "When I am Yes," was released in 2014.

Christopher Stewart is coauthor with Quraysh Lansana of the new poetry collection, "The Walmart Republic." His work has appeared in numerous poetry journals, in the anthology "Power Lines," and in the audio anthology "A Snake in the Heart." He is a professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University.

For 16 years, the Writers Read series has brought dozens of nationally acclaimed writers to College of DuPage, including Stuart Dybek, Luis Urrea, Scott Russell Sanders and Joy Harjo. According to English professor Tom Montgomery Fate, many College of DuPage faculty members teach the work of these visiting writers, often inspiring a deeper appreciation of the authors, their process and resulting work.

For more information about the Writers Read series, visit www.cod.edu/writersread or contact English Professor Jackie McGrath at (630) 942-2709, mcgrathj@cod.edu.