Spalding University’s Festival of Contemporary Writing

Spalding University’s Festival of Contemporary Writing

 Best-selling author and New York Times contributing opinion writer Margaret Renkl visits Spalding University this month as the Distinguished Visiting Writer at the Sena-Jeter Naslund-Karen Mann Graduate School of Writing.  The public is invited to attend Renkl’s reading and presentation  about her critically acclaimed 2021 essay collection, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss,  at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 24, in the Egan Leadership Center’s Troutman Lectorium, 901 S. Fourth Street. A book signing will follow the presentation. This is a free, ticketless event. Publisher Milkweed Editions says of Late Migrations, “In brief essays, Renkl traces a tender and honest portrait of her unforgettable parents and of the bittersweet moment that accompany a child’s transition to caregiver.” Late Migrations was named a Best Book of the Year by the New Statesmen, the New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library,Foreword Reviews, and the Washington Independent Review of Books. An “Our Monthly Pick” at Barnes & Noble, it won the 2020 Phillip D. Reed Environmental Writing Award and was named a finalist for the 2020 Southern Book Prize. Late Migrations was a “Read with Jenna” selection. Renkl and her work have been featured on The Today Show. In addition to Late Migrations, Renkl has also published Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South. Both books feature a number of her New York Times essays. Her work has also appeared in Guernica, Literary Hub, and Oxford American, among others. Renkl’s appearance headlines Spalding University’s Festival of Contemporary Writing, the state’s largest fall-spring reading series. The festival features readings May 18 – 25 by faculty and alumni of Spalding’s low-residency graduate writing programs. All festival events are free and ticketless, and a mple free parking is available on Spalding’s campus, including a nearby lot on Fourth Street near Breckinridge.

For more information call (502) 873-4400 or visit spalding.edu/writing