The Blugold Visiting Writers’ Series is a reading series dedicated to bringing nationally recognized writers to the UW-Eau Claire campus.
Fiction writer Lorrie Moore will be reading various pieces of her work at 7 p.m. on Wednesday in Phillips Recital Hall in the Haas Fine Arts Center.
Eau Claire English professor B.J. Hollars said this year’s goal was to bring two nationally recognized writers to campus.
“In the fall, we were quite fortunate to bring Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey,” he said, “and fiction writer Lorrie Moore will certainly carry on this great tradition.”
Blugold Visiting Writers’ Series is funded by the Blugold Commitment and is co-sponsored by the creative writing faculty in the English department.
“As a creative writing student, the series gives me the chance to get involved in a dialogue with an expert in the field,” sophomore Charlotte Kupush said.
Moore is the author of three short story collections: “Self Help,” “Like Life,” and “Birds of America.” In addition to her short stories, she also writes novels, including “Anagrams” and “Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?” Her third novel, “A Gate at the Stairs,” was honored a 2010 finalist for the Pen/Faulker Award for Fiction.
Moore is also the recipient of an O. Henry Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize and the REA Award for the Short Story. She also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
“Her realist humor really connects with me,” senior Hayley Kubler said. “She balances sad and happy, funny and serious, and the end product feels beautifully real. I really hope that students take advantage of her being on campus, even if they’ve never read anything by her before.”
Moore’s work has been featured in the New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times and The Paris Review.
“The Blugold Visiting Writers’ Series isn’t just for English majors,” Hollars said. “It’s an opportunity for students, faculty and the outside community to come together to celebrate writing.”
Kupsh encourages students to attend the Blugold Visiting Writers’ Series, as she describes it as an “invaluable experience.”
