2018-2019

Mar y E. READING SERIES The Mary E. Rolling Reading Series is a project ofRolling Penn State’s Creative Writing Program in English. It receives generous support from the College of the Liberal Arts, the Department of English, the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment, the Mary E. Rolling Lectureship in Creative Writing, and the University Libraries.

FALL 2018 SPRING 2019

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 THURSDAY, JANUARY 24 Justin Torres Julia Spicher Kasdorf Justin Torres’ first novel We the Animals, a national best seller,

PHOTO: GREGORY CROWLEY PHOTO: GREGORY has been translated into 15 languages and is currently being and Steven Rubin adapted into a feature film. He has published short fiction Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Steven Rubin will present Shale and non-fiction in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Tin Play: Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Fields, a House, , Glimmer Train, Flaunt, and other collaborative documentary project. Kasdorf is author of three publications. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he books in the Pitt Poetry Series, most recently Poetry in America. is the recipient of numerous prestigious grants, awards, and Her poems were awarded a 2009 NEA fellowship and a Pushcart fellowships. The National Book Foundation named him one of Prize and appear in numerous anthologies. She is a Professor of

2012’s “5 Under 35.” He currently lives in Los Angeles, where PHOTOS: ZSUZSANNA NAGY English and Women’s Studies at Penn State, where she teaches he is Assistant Professor of English at UCLA. (Co-sponsorship creative writing. Rubin is a documentary photographer whose for this reading is provided by the LGBTQA Student Resource work addresses rural poverty, refugee migration, immigrant Center and Latina/o Studies.) detention, and the social and environmental impacts of energy development. He has been a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in India, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellow, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8 and an Open Society Institute Media Fellow. He is an Associate Ariel Levy Professor of Art at Penn State, where he teaches photography. Ariel Levy is the author of bestselling memoir The Rules Do Not Apply. She has been a staff writer THURSDAY, MARCH 14 at The New Yorker magazine since 2008 and received the National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism for her piece Jennifer Vanderbes “Thanksgiving in Mongolia.” She was the guest editor of the Jennifer Vanderbes is a novelist and nonfiction writer whose anthology The Best American Essays of 2015 and is the author work has been translated into 16 languages. A former of Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Guggenheim fellow, Vanderbes’ first novel, , was Culture (2005). (Co-sponsorship for this reading is provided by named a “Best Book of 2003” by The Washington Post and the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and The Christian Science Monitor. Her writing has appeared in the LGBTQA Student Resource Center.) The New York Times, , The Washington Post, Granta and The Atlantic, and her forthcoming nonfiction book, The Gatekeeper, about the thalidomide scandal of the 1960s, has been awarded a grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and will be published by Random House and HarperCollins UK.

THURSDAY, APRIL 4 AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Katie Fallon Free LOCATION: Assembly Room, The Nittany Lion Inn Katie Fallon is the author of Vulture: The Private Life of an For more information Unloved Bird (UPNE, 2017) and Cerulean Blues: A Personal Charlotte Holmes or Alison Jaenicke Search for a Vanishing Songbird (Ruka Press, 2011), as well as Director of Creative Writing Assistant Director of Creative Writing [email protected] [email protected] two books for children. Her essays and articles have appeared in a variety of literary journals and magazines, and she has Visit our website Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter http://english.la.psu.edu www.facebook.com/PSUwriters @PSUwriters taught writing at Virginia Tech, West Virginia University, and in the Low-Residency MFA programs of West Virginia Wesleyan This publication is available in alternative media on request. Penn State is an equal opportunity, affirmative action College and Chatham University. She is also a founder of the employer, and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia and a Penn State grad. color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. If you (Co-sponsorship for this reading is provided by the Sustainability anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please consult Tacee Sechler at 814-863-2179, [email protected] in advance of your participation or visit. Penn State is committed to Institute and the Center for American Literary Studies/Centre affirmative action, equal opportunity, and the diversity of its workforce. U.Ed. LBA 19-27 MPC149489 County Reads.)

All readings take place at 7:30 p.m. in The Larry and Ellen Foster Auditorium in 102 Paterno Library unless noted otherwise