Working Writers Series Kicked Off Fall Semester with Two Holy Cross Professors

The first Working Writers Series event kicked off this Thursday with readings by Oliver de la Paz and Stephanie Reents, both associate professors of English at the College of the Holy Cross.

The Working Writers Series events, which are sponsored by the English department’s Creative Writing Program, will present readings from the following writers throughout the semester. All events will take place in the Rehm Library in Smith Hall (unless otherwise noted) and are free and open to the public.

Thursday, Sept. 15 at 7:30 p.m., Leah Hager Cohen, the James N. and Sarah L. O'Rielly Barrett Professor in Creative Writing, will engage in conversation with reporter Beth Reinhard, who is covering the presidential campaign for The Wall Street Journal. Reinhard will share stories from this year's astonishing election season as well as address how the essential elements of storytelling — from a strong lede to pacing to the well-chosen detail — work in journalism. Reinhard previously covered politics for the National Journal and the Miami Herald. This event is sponsored by the Creative Writing Program.

Thursday, Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m., Mary Morrissy, the author of acclaimed fiction including “The Rising of Bella Casey” (Brandon, 2013), “The Pretender” (Vintage, 2000), “Mother of Pearl” (Vintage, 1996), and the short story collection “A Lazy Eye” (Scribner, 1993). The interlinked short stories in her most recent work, “Prosperity Drive” (Jonathan Cape, 2016), have been lauded for their "brilliantly acute observation of every sort of detail" and the work as a whole described as "impressive and so thoroughly enjoyable" (Irish Times). This event is co-sponsored by the Edward Callahan Support Fund for Irish Studies and the Jenks Chair of Contemporary American Letters.

Thursday, Nov. 10 at 7:30 p.m., renowned poet and editor Carolyn Forché will read from her work. Forché is the author of four books of poetry. Her famed international anthology, “Against Forgetting” (W. W. Norton & Company, 1993), has been praised by Nelson Mandela as “itself a blow against tyranny, against prejudice, against injustice.” In 1998 in Stockholm, she received the Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture Award for her human rights advocacy and the preservation of memory and culture. She is currently at work on a memoir of her years in El Salvador, Lebanon, South Africa, and France. This event is co-sponsored by the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at Holy Cross, the Gregory Stockmal Fund, and the Worcester County Poetry Association.