All readings take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Center of Fine and Performing Arts Gallery, Building 82. A reception will precede each event at 7 p.m. The events are free and open to the public. All readings are sponsored by the UWF Department of English and Foreign Languages. For more information, contact Professor Jonathan Fink at jfink@uwf.edu.

2009 - 2010

November 5, 2009 - Joseph Skibell, Fiction Writer

Joseph Skibell's debut novel, A Blessing on the Moon, received the prestigious Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Turner Prize for First Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters. Skibell's second novel, The English Disease, received the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Skibell's third novel, A Curable Romantic, is forthcoming from Algonquin in 2010. In addition, his work has been widely anthologized and his short stories and essays have appeared in Story, Tikkun, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, and other periodicals. A recipient of a Halls Fellowship, a Michener Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Skibell has taught at the University of Wisconsin, the Humber School for Writers, the Taos Summer Writers Conference, and Bar-Ilan University. He joined the English Department/Creative Writing Program at Emory University in 1999, and is currently working on a book of essays about the tales in the Talmud.

January 28, 2010 - Jason Ockert, Fiction Writer

Jason Ockert has won several national fiction awards and is the author of the short story collection Rabbit Punches. His stories have appeared in many journals, including The Oxford American, Black Warrior Review, Indiana Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Mid-American Review, and McSweeney’s. His work is included in the 2007 anthologies New Stories from the South and Best American Mystery Stories. He teaches in the English Department of Coastal Carolina University.

February 25, 2010 - Laurie O' Brien Creative Writing Awards Reading

The Department of English and Foreign Languages is pleased to sponsor the Laurie O’Brien Creative Writing Awards for full-time undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled at the University of West Florida. Each of the six awards carries a $50 cash prize and a featured reading by the author at the Awards Night Writers in the Gallery. Awards for the best poetry, fiction and nonfiction by a currently enrolled University of West Florida student will be given on both the graduate and undergraduate level.