Creative Writing B.F.A. Faculty Giving Public Reading February 9, 2012

January 10, 2012 – The spring semester Creative Writers Reading Series at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, begins on Thursday, Feb. 9, with readings by two faculty members from the college’s B.F.A. in creative writing program.

Professor George Looney and Kim Todd, assistant professor, will share their newest published works at 6 p.m. in the college’s Larry and Kathryn Smith Chapel. The event is free and open to the public, and free parking will be available in the college’s Junker Center lot.

Looney will read from his recently released fifth collection of poetry, A Short Bestiary of Love and Madness, from Stephen F. Austin State University Press. His sixth collection of poetry, Monks Beginning to Waltz, will be published by Truman State University Press on March 1.

Todd’s newest book is Sparrow, part of Reaktion Books’ Animal Series. Her previous book, Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis, was selected as one of the best science/technical books of 2007 by the Library Journal, and as a Book to Remember by the New York Public Library. Her first book, Tinkering with Eden: A Natural History of Exotics in America, received the PEN/Jerard Award, the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, and was selected as one of Booklist’s 2001 Top Ten Science/Technical Books. Todd’s articles and essays have appeared in Orion, Sierra Magazine, California Wild and Grist, among other journals. She is a senior fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program.

Also upcoming in the spring series will be Behrend Reads, a reading of original works by faculty from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, on Thursday, Feb. 16; poet Kathy Fagan on Thursday, March 22; senior thesis readings by B.F.A. students on Thursday, March 29, and April 12; fiction writer Charles Baxter on Thursday, April 5; and literary nonfiction author Sharman Apt Russell on Thursday, April 19.

Penn State Behrend’s annual Creative Writers Reading Series is produced by the college’s B.F.A. in creative writing degree program with support from the Clarence A. and Eugenie Baumann Smith Fund. For more information about the series, phone the Penn State Behrend School of Humanities and Social Sciences at 814-898-6108.