Poet Ruth Ellen Kocher, Booker Award-winning writer Paul Beatty to visit UNT

Monday, February 5, 2018 - 16:57
Poet Ruth Ellen Kocher speak Feb. 27 (Tuesday) at the University of North Texas as part of the Visiting Writers Series.
Poet Ruth Ellen Kocher speak Feb. 27 (Tuesday) at the University of North Texas as part of the Visiting Writers Series.

DENTON (UNT), Texas - A prolific poet and an award-winning novelist will visit the University of North Texas this spring.

     Poet Ruth Ellen Kocher and Booker Prize-winning novelist Paul Beatty will speak at UNT as part of the Visiting Writers Series. The event is sponsored by the Department of English.

Ruth Ellen Kocher: February 27 (Tuesday)

Ruth Ellen Kocher has written seven books of poetry, including“Ending in Planes,”which won the Noemi Poetry Prize. Her other works include “Third Voice,” a finalist for the 2017 UNT Rilke Prize;“Goodbye Lyric: The Gigans and Lovely Gun;” and “domina Un/blued.” She has also won grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Yaddo. She currently teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she also serves as associate dean for the College of Arts and Sciences.

  • February 27 (Tuesday), Q&A: 4 p.m., Room 104, General Academic Building (downstairs), 225 S. Ave. B; Reading, 8 p.m., Room 116, Sage Hall, 1167 Union Circle

Paul Beatty: March 30 (Friday)

Paul Beatty won two of literature’s most prestigious awards, the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, for his 2015 novel “The Sellout.”The New York City-based writer also wrote the novels “Tuff,” “Slumberland” and “The White Boy Shuffle”and edited “Hokum: An Anthology of African American Humor.”He is also a poet who won the first Grand Poetry Slam Champion of the Nuyorican Poets Café in 1990, leading to his first book deal and appearances on MTV and PBS. He has also written two books of poetry, “Big Bank Take Little Bank” and “Joker, Joker, Deuce.”

  • March 30 (Friday): Reading, Q&A, and book signing, 2 p.m., Room 333, University Union, 1155 Union Circle

Barnes and Noble at UNT will have copies of the featured writers’ books for sale at each reading. All events in the Visiting Writers Series are free. For more information about the Creative Writing program’s Visiting Writer Series, visit its website or contact Lisa Vining at 940-369-5981. For information about parking, please visit http://transportation.unt.edu/visitor-information.

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