The Bankhead Visiting Writers Series kicks off tonight, with readings from Kellie Wells and Dave Madden, both UA creative writing professors.
The event will begin at 7 p.m. in Smith Hall, Room 205, and admission is free to all.
Dave Madden, an assistant professor of English at the University, said he would be reading from “The Authentic Animal,” his book on the history and culture of taxidermy, forthcoming in 2011 from St. Martin’s Press.
According to his website, davemadden.org, “As a structural technique, [the book] also sketches the life of Carl Akeley, who helped revolutionize the process by which animal skins get mounted on pre-made sculptures, and who is considered by many to be the Father of Modern Taxidermy.”
Madden said he uses the topic to explore the relationship between humans and animals.
“Why do we do this to animals,” he said, “take their skins and drape them over pre-sculpted forms? Why is it creepy? Why is it funny? Why is it suddenly everywhere I look? Plus I’ll be reading about jackalopes, which are always interesting.”
Kellie Wells, also an assistant professor of English, will be reading from her novel “Fat Girl, Terrestrial.” She has won several awards for her works, including the Flannery O’Connor Award and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writer’s Award in fiction and has received a Rona Jaffe Prize.
“The chapter I’ll read is a retelling of the Pied Piper tale,” Wells said. “The story features menacing jackrabbits the size of Great Danes that plague a small Kansas town – clearly a story for our times.”
Other writers set to participate in this year’s Bankhead Visiting Writers Series are GC Waldrep and Sabrina Orah Mark on Oct.14, Ted Conover on Nov. 9, Cecil Giscombe on Feb. 17, Larry Sutin on March 3, and Brenda Hillman and Claudia Keelan on April 7.
All of the readings will take place in Smith Hall, Room 205, except Ted Conover’s. Members of the Book Arts program will make keepsake broadsides for the events, according to the English department website.
The Bankhead Visiting Writers Series brings both emerging and internationally renowned writers to the University of Alabama campus to read from their work.
Past visiting writers include Charles Simic, Alice McDermott, Kevin Young, Andre Dubus, Robert Pinsky, Alice Walker, Bei Dao, Neil Gaiman and George Saunders, among others.
“This is an interesting first reading of the year because we were lucky enough to hire fiction writer Dr. Kellie Wells and a non-fiction writer Dr. Dave Madden,” said Wendy Rawlings, an author and creative writing professor. “Each year, we invite a diverse group of writers to campus so that students will have the opportunity to meet living writers and hear them read their work. Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf, though much beloved, have been dead for a long time; the creative writing program wants to generate interest and enthusiasm for contemporary writers and writing.”
