The Jack Ridl Visiting Writers Series of Hope College will feature fiction writer Don Waters and poet Aracelis Girmay on Monday, Oct. 12, at 7 p.m. at the Knickerbocker Theatre in downtown Holland.
The writers will also be featured during a question-and-answer session on Monday, Oct. 12, at 3 p.m. in the DeWitt Center Herrick Room.
The public is invited to both events. Admission is free.
Don Waters won the 2009 Great Lakes College Association (GLCA) New Writers Award for his collection of stories, "Desert Gothic," which also won the Iowa Short Fiction Award. Novelist Percival Everett has called the prose in Waters's stories, which are all set in the American southwest, "as sneaky as the landscape it depicts . . . also as harsh and as beautiful." Waters has received numerous fellowships and honors for his writing, including the Pushcart Prize and the Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. He was born and raised in Reno, Nev., and now lives in Santa Fe, N.M.
Aracelis Girmay won the 2009 GLCA New Writers Award for "Teeth," a collection of poetry that reflects her Eritrean, Puerto Rican and African American traditions. She is also the author of a book for children, "Changing, Changing: Story and Collages," published in 2005. A former Watson fellow and Cave Canem fellow, Girmay has published extensively in journals and literary magazines. She was born and raised in Southern California, and now leads community writing workshops throughout California and New York.
The Hope College Jazz Ensemble will precede the reading at the Knickerbocker with a 6:30 p.m. performance.
Additional information may be obtained online by visiting www.hope.edu/vws.
The DeWitt Center is located at 141 E. 12th St., facing Columbia Avenue at 12th Street. The Knickerbocker Theatre is located at 86 E. Eighth St.