Spalding University’s Festival of Contemporary Writing, the state’s largest spring-fall reading series, will be held November 15-22, featuring free readings by faculty, guests, and alumni of Spalding University’s brief-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing program. The events will be held at Spalding’s Egan Leadership Center lectorium, located at the corner of Fourth and Breckinridge streets, except where noted.

Saturday, November 15, 7:30 p.m. Celebration of Recently Published Books (Gallery, 16th floor, Brown Hotel, 335 W. Broadway)
○ Brad Riddell (screenwriting), screenwriter of Slap Shot: The Junior League
○ Louella Bryant (nonfiction, writing for children), author of While in Darkness There Is Light
○ Silas House (fiction), author of The Hurting Part
○ Eric Schmiedl (playwriting), author of Plainsong
Book signing to follow. Books provided by Carmichael’s Bookstore.

Sunday, November 16, 4:15 p.m.
○ Dianne Aprile (nonfiction), author of Making a Heart for God: A Week Inside a Catholic Monastery
○ Maureen Morehead (poetry), author of A Sense of Time Left
○ Eleanor Morse (fiction), author of An Unexpected Forest
○ Kathleen Driskell (poetry), author of Seed Across Snow (forthcoming)
○ Karen Mann, Spalding MFA Administrative Director

Sunday, November 16, 7:30 p.m
○ Richard Goodman (nonfiction), author of The Soul of Creative Writing
○ Neela Vaswani (fiction), author of Where the Long Grass Bends
○ Philip F. Deaver (poetry, fiction), author of How Men Pray; Silent Retreats
○ Joyce McDonald (writing for children), author of Devil on My Heels
○ Kirby Gann (fiction), author of Our Napoleon in Rags

Monday, November 17, 7:30 p.m.
○ Jeanie Thompson (poetry), author of White for Harvest: New and Selected Poems
○ Roy Hoffman (fiction, nonfiction), author of Chicken Dreaming Corn; Back Home: Journeys    Through Mobile
○ Julie Brickman (fiction), author of What Birds Can Only Whisper
○ Greg Pape (poetry), author of American Flamingo
○ Mary Yukari Waters (fiction), author of The Laws of Evening

Tuesday, November 18, 7:30 p.m. (Gallery, 16th floor, Brown Hotel, 335 W. Broadway)
○ Special Guest: Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto
Book signing to follow. Books provided by Carmichael’s Bookstore.

Thursday, November 20, 7:30 p.m.
○ Nancy McCabe (nonfiction), author of Meeting Sophie: A Memoir of Adoption
○ Robin Lippincott (fiction), author of In the Meantime
○ Debra Kang Dean (poetry), author of Precipitates
○ Rachel Harper (fiction), author of Brass Ankle Blues
○ Sam Zalutsky (screenwriting), screenwriter of You Belong to Me

Friday, November 21, 5 p.m.
○ Crystal Wilkinson (fiction), author of Water Street
○ Luke Wallin (writing for children, fiction, creative nonfiction), author of Conservation Writing: Essays at the Crossroads of Nature and Culture
○ Jody Lisberger (fiction), author of Remember Love
○ Charles Schulman (playwriting, screenwriting), author of Angel of Death
○ Sena Jeter Naslund (fiction), author of Adam & Eve (forthcoming)

Saturday, November 22, 10:45 a.m. Reading by MFA Alumni from Works in Progress
○ Aimee Zaring, Patricia McFadden, Lynda Archer, Mark Brown, Jeanne Haggard, Katy Yocom

The reading schedule may change without notice. Check the website for updated information: www.spalding.edu/mfa. For more information, call 502-585-9911, ext. 2423 or 800-896-8941, ext. 2423 or email mfa@spalding.edu.

Spalding’s four-semester, brief-residency MFA in Writing combines superb instruction with unparalleled flexibility. The Program offers concentrations in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, writing for children, screenwriting, and playwriting. Students begin the semester in the spring, summer, or fall with a 10-day residency in Louisville or abroad, then return home to study by correspondence one-on-one with a faculty mentor for the rest of the semester. Students may customize the location, season, and pace of their studies. See www.spalding.edu/mfa for more information.