Author, Poet to Give Readings as Part of UA’s Bankhead Visiting Writers Series

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Author Gina Ochsner and poet Barbara Jane Reyes will give readings Thursday, April 19 at 7:30 p.m. in 205 Smith Hall on The University of Alabama campus, as part of the Bankhead Visiting Writers Series.

Ochsner’s first collection, “The Necessary Grace to Fall,” won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Oregon Book Award for Short Fiction and the PNBA award for short stories and was an Austin Chronicle Top Ten Pick. Her second book, “People I Wanted to Be,” was recently published. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, “The Best American Nonrequired Reading,” Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner and many other magazines, and have received awards such as the Raymond Carver Prize and the Chelsea Award for Short Fiction.

Reyes is the author of “Gravities of Center” and “Poeta en San Francisco” for which she received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. Reyes is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee, and her work has appeared in Asian Pacific American Journal, Chain, New American Writing, North American Review, Tinfish and others. She has had poems published in a dozen anthologies, including “InvAsian: Asian Sisters Represent,” “100 Love Poems: Philippine Love Poetry Since 1905” and The Lambda Award finalist “Red Light: Superheroes, Saints and Sluts.”

The reading is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.

The Bankhead Visiting Writers Series is made possible by an endowment from the Bankhead Foundation, The University of Alabama’s Program in Creative Writing, the department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences. For more information, contact UA’s creative writing program at 205/348-0766.

The College of Arts and Sciences is the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the “USA Today” Academic All American Team.