Join us for a reading from members of St. Edward’s University’s Literature, Writing and Rhetoric department. With readings from Alan Altimont, Amy Clements, Mary Helen Specht, Sasha West, and Michael Yang (left to right, below).

Alan Altimont has been translating the largely neglected Latin poetry of Marbod of Rennes (1035-1123 CE), the only early medieval European to write poems about himself, his sexuality, aesthetic experience, and the writing of poetry. He is an associate professor of English at St. Edward’s University, where he has taught various literature, creative writing, and composition courses for more than thirty years.

A native Austinite, Amy Clements teaches at St. Edward’s University and earned an MFA in creative writing at The New School in New York City. Her short fiction has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, and The South Carolina Review. She is currently working on a novel titled The Darkest Skies in North America.

Mary Helen Specht’s debut novel, Migratory Animals, was an Editors’ Choice by the New York Times Book Review and the Austin American-Statesmen, an IndieNext Pick, and an Apple iBook selection. Migratory Animals also won the Texas Institute of Letters Best First Fiction Award and the Writers’ League of Texas Best Book of Fiction. A previous Fulbright Scholar to Nigeria and Dobie-Paisano Writing Fellow, Specht is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at St. Edward’s University. Texas Monthly has named her one of “Ten Writers to Watch.”

Sasha West’s first book, Failure and I Bury the Body, won the National Poetry Series and the Texas Institute of Letters First Book of Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review Online, West Branch, Southern Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. Her awards include a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellowship, Inprint’s Verlaine Prize, Rice University’s Parks Fellowship, and a Houston Arts Alliance grant. She is currently working on a manuscript of poems about climate change.

Michael Yang’s stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, Boulevard, The Seattle Review, and other publications. He is currently working on a book of short stories and a novel.