Writers Speak To Student Hopefuls, Launch Lecture Series' 40Th Year

The Creative Writing Program and the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House co-produced the 40th "Writers Here & Now" lecture series.

by Grace Toohey, The Diamondback

After spilling her water on-stage because of her restrained broken arm, Elliot Holt joked, “It’s like a frat house up here.”

That was just the beginning of a series of jokes and anecdotes from the fiction author, who spoke to more than 200 students in the Ulrich Recital Hall in Tawes Hall last night. Holt, along with poet Sally Keith, read their work and kicked off the 40th year of the “Writers Here & Now” lecture series. The series, co-produced by the Creative Writing program and the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House, is the longest-running lecture series on the campus.

Holt read chapters from her latest book, You Are One of Them, which takes place in post-Soviet Russia and the United States in the 1980s. The room echoed with laughter when Holt, speaking as the book’s main character, talked about the process of email and called the Internet a hoax.

“They were pretty funny and interesting. It kept me listening,” sophomore biology major Ashley Slack said. “I hope it influences my writing to sound a little more like that.”

Keith read a collection of poems from her newest book, The Fact of the Matter, which she explained is an exploration on the idea of grace. She also read 13 short poems she wrote while coping with her mother’s death from cancer.

“I’m grateful to be reading here, and especially among so many great writers who I can call neighbors and friends,” she said.

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