Jaimy Gordon, whose novel “Lord of Misrule” won the 2010 National Book Award in fiction, will read at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 29, in the Robinson Reading Room at the West Virginia University Downtown Library. Gordon has been chosen as the 2012 Sturm Writer-in-Residence. In addition to her reading, which is free and open to the public, Gordon will work with 12 WVU creative writing students for the remainder of the week.

Gordon’s award-winning novel is set at a horse racing track in West Virginia.

“We’re thrilled to have Jaimy Gordon come to Morgantown,” said Mark Brazaitis, WVU’s director of creative writing and a professor in the Department of English. “Lord of Misrule” is a complex and beautifully written book, perhaps the finest in her outstanding career. That it is set in West Virginia, a state Jaimy Gordon knows well, will only increase its interest for local readers.”
Gordon’s other books include the novels “Shamp of the City-Solo” (1974), “She Drove Without Stopping” (1993), and “Bogeywoman” (1999); two novellas, “Private T. Pigeon’s Tale” (1979) and “Circumspections from an Equestrian Statue” (1979); a narrative poem, “The Bend, The Lip, The Kid” (1978); and the masque “The Rose of the West” (1976). Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, The Little Magazine, The Missouri Review, Open Places, and other literary magazines.

Gordon graduated from Antioch College in 1965, and received her Doctor of Arts from Brown University in 1975. She has lived in southern California and West Virginia and was writer-in-residence with the Rhode Island Council on the Arts from 1975 to 1977. She has taught at Brown University, Roger Williams College, and Eastern Washington State College, and is currently teaching at Western Michigan University.

Students are selected for the Sturm Workshop on the basis of a campus-wide writing competition. Any student may submit a sample of writing for consideration. Those selected are among the University’s finest creative writers.

“This is an exceptional group of students,” Brazaitis said. “Jaimy Gordon will have a first-hand understanding of how dynamic and talented the student writing community is at WVU.”
The reading will be followed by a reception and book signing.

For more information, contact Mark Brazaitis, director of Creative Writing, at (304) 293-9707. Mark.Brazaitis@mail.wvu.edu.

-WVU-

ap/10/8/12

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