|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
2010 Speaker and Readers
About Mark Doty
 MARK DOTY, who taught for 10 years in the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, is a National Book Award-winning poet, memoirist, and essayist.
 Born in 1953 in Maryville, Tennessee, Doty received a bachelor’s degree from Drake University in Iowa and an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College in Vermont. In 1987, he published his first collection of poetry, Turtle, Swan. The publication of his third collection, My Alexandria (1993), placed Doty on the literary map, winning him the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. Two years later, Doty became the first American to win the T. S. Eliot Prize for the best book of poetry published in the United Kingdom.
Over the past two decades, Doty has also produced eight volumes of verse, most recently Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems (2008), winner of the National Book Award. His prose work includes the bestselling Dog Years (2007), a moving meditation on hope and loss which chronicles his life with dogs. His memoir, Heaven’s Coast (1996), focused on the death of his companion Wally Roberts and is considered a major contribution to the literature of the AIDS crisis. A second memoir, Firebird (1999), described the experience of growing up gay and bookish in ’50s and ’60s America. “I believe that art saved my life,” Doty wrote.
U.S. Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz praised Doty’s work: “With his clarity of vision and great heart, Doty stands among us an emblematic and shining presence.” Doty now teaches at Rutgers University and divides his time between New York City and the east end of Long Island.
About Alexander Parsons
 ALEXANDER PARSONS joined the faculty of the University of Houston Creative Writing Program in fall 2007, where he now teaches full time. Brought up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Parsons earned a BA from Wesleyan, an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and an MA from New Mexico State University. He is the author of two novels, Leaving Disneyland and In the Shadows of the Sun. Leaving Disneyland won a 2000 Associated Writing Programs Award for the Novel and also the 2001 Writers’ League of Texas Violet Crown Award. The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review called it “riveting storytelling.” Parsons is now at work on a third novel, El Repoman, and has also had several screenplays optioned.
About Coert Voorhees
 COERT VOORHEES is a graduate of Middlebury College and received an MFA in fiction from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. He is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship for the translation of Chilean theatrical works, and his screenplays have advanced in various national competitions, including winners at the Telluride IndieFest and PAGE International Screenwriting Awards. His debut novel, The Brothers Torres, was named one of 2009’s Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults by the American Library Association. His second novel, The Artist, is forthcoming in early 2011. Voorhees is also the creator of the animated educational series, Grammaropolis. He currently serves as the Parks Fellow at Rice University.
About Gwendolyn Zepeda
 GWENDOLYN ZEPEDA, a native Houstonian, is the author of the story collection, To the Last Man I Slept with and All the Jerks Just Like Him, and the novel, Houston, We Have a Problema. Booklist says of the novel, “The vibrant Houston setting and the novel’s emphasis on Tex-Mex culture, art, and folklore add unusual and alluring touches to this debut novel.” Zepeda’s first children’s book, Growing Up with Tamales, is a 2009 Charlotte Zolotow Award Highly Commended Title. In spring 2010, Zepeda releases her new novel, Lone Star Legend, which, like her other works, is set in Texas and follows the life and career of an aspiring journalist. A two-time Houston Arts Alliance literary fellowship winner and award-winning poet, Zepeda blogs for the Houston Chronicle.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|