Zell Visiting Writers Series: Poet Karen Solie Reading and Q&A
Click here to register: http://tinyurl.com/ZellWriters23 .
Zell Visiting Writers Series readings and Q&As are free and open to the public and will be offered both virtually (via Zoom) and in person (in UMMA’s Stern Auditorium). Seats are offered on a first come, first served basis; please arrive early to secure a spot.
Karen Solie was born in Moose Jaw and grew up in rural southwest Saskatchewan, Canada. After working as a reporter for three years for The Lethbridge Herald, she earned an MA in English at the University of Victoria. She is the author of five collections of poetry. Short Haul Engine (Brick Books, 2001) won the Dorothy Livesay Award, and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award and Griffin Poetry Prize. Modern and Normal (Brick Books, 2005) was shortlisted for the Trillium Poetry Prize. Pigeon (Anansi, 2009) won the Trillium Poetry Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, and the Griffin Poetry Prize. The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out (Anansi, FSG, 2014) was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award. The Caiplie Caves (Anansi, Picador, 2019; FSG, 2020) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Derek Walcott Prize. The Living Option, a volume of selected poems published in the UK by Bloodaxe Books in 2013, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
Karen’s poems have been published in journals and anthologies in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Europe, and Australia and translated into eight languages. She is the recipient of the Latner Poetry Prize, the Canada Council Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for an artist in mid-career, and a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship. She has taught for writing programs and universities across Canada and in the UK, was the 2021 Jack McClelland Writer in Residence for Massey College at the University of Toronto, and the 2022 Holloway Visiting Poet for the University of California at Berkeley. She is currently a lecturer in creative writing with the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
For any questions about the event or to share accommodation needs, please email kimjulie@umich.edu–we are eager to help ensure this event is inclusive to you. The building, event space, and restrooms are wheelchair accessible. Diaper changing tables are available in nearby restrooms. Gender-inclusive restrooms are available on the second floor of the Museum, accessible via the stairs, or in nearby Hatcher Graduate Library (Floors 3, 4, 5, and 6). The Hatcher Library also offers a reflection room (4th Floor South Stacks), and a lactation room (Room 13W, an anteroom to the basement women’s staff restroom, or Room 108B, an anteroom of the first floor women’s restroom). ASL interpreters and CART services at in-person events are available upon request; please email kimjulie@umich.edu at least two weeks prior to the event, whenever possible, to allow time to arrange services.
U-M employees with a U-M parking permit may use the Church Street Parking Structure (525 Church St., Ann Arbor) or the Thompson Parking Structure (500 Thompson St., Ann Arbor). There is limited metered street parking on State Street and South University Avenue. The Forest Avenue Public Parking Structure (650 South Forest Ave., Ann Arbor) is five blocks away, and the parking rate is $1.20 per hour. All of these options include parking spots for individuals with disabilities.
The Zell Visiting Writers Series is a reading series presented by the Helen Zell Writers’ Program in partnership with the University of Michigan Museum of Art, with support from the Department of English Language & Literature, the Office of the Vice President for Research, and Janey Lack.
ZVWS events are free and open to the public. For additional information, questions, or accommodations needs, please contact Program Manager Julie Cadman-Kim at kimjulie@umich.edu.