Literary Happenings at ASU this October

Literary Happenings at ASU this October

The Department of English at Arizona State University is putting on a series of informative and educational events this October. Take a look at some of the happenings on campus:


John Plotz – ‘We Have Always Been Posthuman: Speculative Satire before Science Fiction’ | October 2nd

Come to the annual Ian Fletcher Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the Department of English in honor of Professor Ian Fletcher (1920-1988). This year’s lecture will be delivered by John Plotz, the Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandies University and co-host of Recall This Book podcast. His research interests are in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature, the novel, science fiction, and fantasy, and is the author of several related works including “The Crowd: British Literature and Public Politics” (2000), “Portable Property: Victorian Culture on the Move” (2017), and “My Reading: Ursula Le Guin’s ‘Earthsea'” (2023).

The event will take place in Ross-Blakley Hall (RBHL) room 196 on the Tempe Campus. Doors open at 4:45. The event begins at 5:15. Refreshments will be served. Learn more.


‘Flatland’ Book Club with John Plotz | October 2nd

Professor John Plotz will also be hosting a discussion of the nineteenth-century novel “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” (1884) by Edwin Abbott Abbott.

The book club will take place in Ross-Blakley Hall (RBHL) room 324 on the Tempe Campus. The event will be held from 10:45 a.m.-noon. Please RVSP if you would like to attend this free event.


Echoes Seen: Collaborations in Image and Verse | September 14 – October 14

Supported by the Institute for Humanities Research, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, The Department of English and the School of Art; the graduate students and faculty of the MFA programs of Creative Writing and the School of Art at ASU present “Echoes Seen: Collaborations in Image and Verse.” The exhibition displays work across many mediums, varying from photography, drawing, clothing, ceramics, paper-mâché, video and sound installation, and range in subject matter from joy, collective mythology, personal history, cultural fragments and their assemblage, and the significance of artifacts. In this exhibition, the possibilities for new perspectives in artists’ craft through the lens of collaboration – in pleasurable submissions and active encounters with another’s imagination – is ultimately about forging new and radical relationships through art.

The exhibition is open from September 14 – October 14, 2023. The gallery is open Thursday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. ; first and third Fridays, 6 to 9 p.m. Learn more.


Humanities Week | October 15-20th

From October 15-20, ASU will be hosting The College’s Humanities Week with over 20 in-person and virtual events. Learn more.


MFA Student Reading Series | October 20th

Presented by ASU’s Creative Writing Program, the event brings notable alumni authors to the ASU community for readings and discussions about their writing and literary works.

The event will take place at the Ellis-Shackelford House, 1242 N. Central Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85004 from 5:30-7:00 p.m.


ASU Common Read: A Virtual Visit with Woo-kyoung Ahn | October 26th
ASU is excited to host Yale psychologist Woo-kyoung Ahn, author of “Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better,” for a virtual visit. Ahn will discuss “Thinking 101″—ASU’s Writing Programs selected Common Read for 2023-24—and answer questions from students and faculty.

The event will be held on Zoom from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. MST on Thursday, October 26, 2023. Learn more.


Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing: Distinguished Visiting Writers Series (DNRS) | October 27th

The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing holds a series of free events open to the public to ensure all individuals have the ability to participate in the literary arts. Visiting authors host small workshops in partnership with the Piper Writers Studio, engage in intimate craft talks with students, visit ASU classes, and participate in other meaningful activities.

This month, the Piper Center welcomes Eileen Myles and Jenny Irish. The event will feature a reading and conversation with two inimitable voices as they read their work and discuss poetry, life, love, gender and more.

About the authors:

Eileen Myles

Eileen Myles (they/them, b. 1949) is a poet, novelist and art journalist whose practice of vernacular first-person writing has made them one of the most recognized writers of their generation. Pathetic Literature, which they edited, came out in Fall of 2022. A “working life,’ their newest collection of poems is out now. They live in New York & in Marfa, TX.

Jenny Irish

Jenny Irish is from Maine and lives in Arizona. She is the author of the hybrid collections Common Ancestor and Tooth Box, and the short story collection I Am Faithful. Her latest book is the poetry collection, Lupine. She is an associate professor of creative writing at Arizona State University.

Hear from these talented writers on Friday, October 27, 2023 from 6:30-8 p.m. MST.

The event will be held on the Tempe Campus in the Piper Writers House. RSVP to save your spot for this exciting literary event. Learn more.

Contributor Update, Jenny Irish

Contributor Update, Jenny Irish

Join us in congratulating Jenny Irish on her new book, I Am Faithful. ASU’s Department of English will be hosting a book launch and all are welcome!

When: Monday, January 27th, 2:30 – 4:00 pm

Where: ASU Tempe Campus, Ross-Blakley Hall (RBHL) 117

I Am Faithful is a book of short fiction that provides a window into impoverished America. Come here her read from it at the event!

To learn more about Jenny and her work you can visit her website. You can also read an interview with her about her previous boo, Common Ancestor, featured in Issue 19 of Superstition Review.

#ArtLitPhx: Cynthia Hogue and Jenny Irish Poetry Reading

9781597090377Irishc-250x386Cynthia Hogue, ASU’s Marshall Chair in Poetry, and Jenny Irish, Assistant Director of ASU’s Creative Writing Program, give a poetry reading at Changing Hands Bookstore at the Tempe location 6428 S McClintock Dr, Tempe, AZ 85283 on Thursday, February 23rd, 2017 at 7 p.m. Hogue will be reading from her ninth collection, In June the Labyrinth and Irish will be reading from her debut collection, Common Ancestor. For more information on this event, visit the Changing Hands Bookstore’s website. This event is free and open to the public.

Hogue’s In June the Labyrinth the main character of this postmodern fable, travels a trans-historical and trans-geographical terrain, on a quest of sorts, investigating not only the “labyrinth” as myth and symbol, but something akin to the “labyrinth of the broken heart.” The story is an earnest female pilgrim’s journey, full of disappointment but also hard-won wisdom and courage.

Hogue has been described in a New York Times micro-review as having a “knack for intensity.” She has published fourteen books, including nine collections of poetry, most recently Revenance, listed as one of the 2014 “Standout” books by the Academy of American Poets, and In June the Labyrinth (Red Hen Press, 2017). With Sylvain Gallais, Hogue co-translated Fortino Sámano (The overflowing of the poem), from the French of poet Virginie Lalucq and philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy (Omnidawn 2012), which won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets in 2013. Hogue served as the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Cornell University in the Spring of 2014. She was a 2015 NEA Fellow in Translation, and holds the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University.

Irish lives in Tempe, Arizona, where she teaches creative writing and serves as the Assistant Director of the Creative Program at Arizona State University. In addition to her new collection of poetry, Irish’s fiction has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Blackbird, Catapult, Colorado Review, Epoch, and The Georgia Review. Irish’s debut collection of prose poems, Common Ancestor, is an awe-inspiring read. From the confident power of its narratives to the hurricane-force language of its vision, this poetry is riveting. In two dramatic personae series of gorgeous, near-gothic detail, Irish looks at all the havoc humans wreak and does not blink. She scrutinizes violence with rare sang froid, and though never moralizing, leaves us in little doubt of the moral center of her universe: “Metal is not guilty for what it does in man’s hands, absent of soul,” as one poem puts it. In lines laced with brilliant figure and sly internal rhyme, Irish’s poetry is charged by truth’s searing song.