LOCK HAVEN, Pa. - Lock Haven University is pleased to announce the resumption of its popular Pennsylvania Authors and UpWrite reading series. Through these two series, successful authors present readings of their works and interact with students and the community. All readings are free and the public is invited to attend.
The Pennsylvania Authors Reading Series, developed in 2000 in conjunction with the course Our Own: Pennsylvania Authors and the anthology “Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania,” enables nationally known authors from Pennsylvania to visit classes and to perform readings for the local and university communities. Marjorie Maddox Hafer, professor of English and director of creative writing, said, “Such a series greatly benefits our students and our community. Interacting one-on-one with successful authors from their own state encourages aspiring writers, avid readers, and student literary scholars a unique opportunity.” She added, “By supporting such a program, Lock Haven University promotes Pennsylvania pride, artistry, and scholarship, while reaching out to the community and surrounding areas.”
The UpWrite Reading Series, which emphasizes diversity from a number of different angles, was awarded a PASSHE Diversity and Social Equity grant for the fall 2007—spring 2009 semesters. The series committee hosted fourteen acclaimed novelists, playwrights, short story and script writers, memoirists, and poets for a total of fifteen events. Authors gave evening readings and film screenings, and visited English, History, Spanish, Education, and Theatre classes. Each semester, writers also met with such student groups as the Black Student Union, the Asian-American Association, Hillel, Lyrically Speaking, and Fulbright Scholar candidates.
Support from the English department and the dean’s Arts and Sciences fund helped revive the series with Spring 2010 readings by poet Rea Berroa and fiction writer and translator Kirk Nessett.
With funding from the English Department and Women’s Studies program, the series is here once again, this time with Pennsylvania authors Barbara Crooker and Bathsheba Monk discussing current medical, environmental, and diversity issues. At both events, books will be available for purchase and signing.

In her reading, “Poetry Is Good Medicine!” on Wednesday, March 2, at 7:00 p.m. in the multipurpose room of the Parsons Union Building, Barbara Crooker will read poems that illuminate the role of medicine in the lives of caregivers and patients. The reading is designed to encourage conversations between the sciences and humanities both on campus and in the community. The author of 14 books, Crooker will present poems on traumatic head injury (TBI), stillbirths, emphysema, aging, breast cancer, torn rotator cuff, degenerative disc disorder, acl tear, and raising a son with autism. While at LHU, Crooker also will meet with Women’s Studies faculty and students and visit English, art, and other classes. In the art classes, she will present her ekphrastic poems, written about specific works of art. For more information, please see http://www.barbaracrooker.com/

On Thursday, March 31, at 7:00 p.m. in the PUB MPR fiction writer Bathsheba Monk will read selections from “Nude Walker,” a new novel from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Set in a small Pennsylvania town, the book explores the topics of industry and the environment alongside issues of love, immigration, and the military. Monk’s acclaimed “Now You See It: Stories from Cokesville” is a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year. The collection interweaves 17 stories of a Pennsylvania coal and steel town and its Polish-American inhabitants. For more information, please see http://www.bathshebamonk.com/

The public and LHU community are cordially invited to attend the evening readings and meet the authors.