As writers, the opportunity to learn from those accomplished in the craft is always welcome. The University of Idaho”s Distinguished Visiting Writer Series provides just that.
Director of the M.F.A Creative Writing Program, Bret Shepard, said the Distinguished Visiting Writer Series has been active at UI in one form or another since the 1970s and with the visiting writers slated to hold a public reading as well as a weeklong class for graduate students, the benefits surpass that of a traditional visit.
Shepard said the committee that chooses the visiting writers, of which there are only two or three each year, is composed of UI English faculty. Criteria for the chosen authors include high writing quality, the writer”s ability to teach and the value of contribution the writer will make to both the UI writing community as well as the creative community of Moscow.
Lia Purpura | Courtesy
Poet and essayist Lia Purpura will visit Moscow as a part of UI”s Distinguished Visiting Writer Series.
“They have to be a fantastic writer but also a distinguished teacher,” Shepard said.
The writer”s ability to teach comes into play as they are given the opportunity to teach a graduate workshop during their visit.
“For students, it”s a week of having a new voice, and to think about writing in new ways they haven”t before,” Shepard said. “It allows the writer to then leave and say great things about their experience to other people. It”s a great way to stay connected to the larger literary community and enrich our own.”
Shepard said the English Department”s newest distinguished guest author, Lia Purpura, who will visit the UI campus on Jan. 18-22, writes both poetry and nonfiction essays.
“She writes in two genres really well,” Shepard said. “A strong sense of poetics in prose and poetry is something I look for first, and I see that as a thread through both (of Purpura”s) genres.”
Although Purpura -– the current Writer in Residence at the University of Maryland and past visiting writer and instructor at various institutions as well as the recipient of several writing accolades – has never visited Idaho, she said she isn”t one to shy away from new experiences.
“I always, always look forward to absorbing the feel of other landscapes, of the milieu, the aura of a place – all the intangibles that one gets only by visiting a new place. The scents, the food, attitudes, habits of people,” Purpura said.
In addition to absorbing the aura of Moscow, Purpura said she looks forward to gaining a feel for the university”s writing community through working with students one-on-one.
“I”m eager to hear how students are asking questions about their work and how they perceive the place of literary writing in America,” Purpura said. “I”m interested in having conversations – rather than discussions – with people.”
When it comes to her work, Purpura said writing in two mediums – poems and essays – has allowed her to customize her ideas and inspirations in ways she feels the material demands.
“Some ideas and sensations want a shorter, denser, more concentrated kind of treatment and some want to exist in the presence of many other ideas, with the intention of being linked up with those others in a net-like way,” Purpura said.
In regards to finding inspiration for her work and working through writer”s block, Purpura said the key is to give the concept of a dry spell little credence and to keep writing – even if the work is sub-par.
“It”s not pleasant but so what? Nothing”s easy. Real art isn”t easy,” Purpura said. “Make up your own methods for getting through the hard spots and in doing it yourself, you”ll be building a very solid core strength. Use your own smarts – i.e. your imagination – and make up your own responses to dry times.”
Purpura will read primarily essays and select works from her new book of poems, “It Shouldn”t Have Been Beautiful,” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Vandal Ballroom in the Bruce Pitman Center.
Admission is free and all students, staff, faculty and Moscow community members are welcome. BookPeople of Moscow will provide copies of Purpura”s works for purchase and the writer will be signing books as well as answering questions following the reading.
Lyndsie Kiebert can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @lyndsie_kiebert