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Reading at Ogletree House on Nov. 30 open
to public
HATTIESBURG—The Center for Writers at the
University of Southern Mississippi is kicking off its 2005-2006
Visiting Writers Program with novelist and short story writer
Michael Knight from Nov. 30 – Dec. 1. A 1993 graduate of the
Southern Miss Center for Writers, Knight most recently wrote
the short story fiction collection Good Night, Nobody.
During his residency, Knight will facilitate an afternoon
workshop with graduate students and meet with them individually
for one-on-one consultations. A reading, free and open to the
public, will be held on campus at the USM Ogletree House at
7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 30.
“Knight’s reading is a terrific contribution to the Hattiesburg
cultural calendar,” said Frederick Barthelme, director of the
Center for Writers, “and his extended interaction with the Center
for Writers graduate students will provide them with insight
and professional guidance beyond the school’s already distinguished
faculty.”
After graduating from Southern Miss, Knight went on to the
University of Virginia’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Fiction
and was recently named the John and Renee Grisham Emerging Southern
Writer at the University of Mississippi. Knight also directs
the Creative Writing program at the University of Tennessee
and has taught at Gilman School in Baltimore and Hollins University
in Roanoke, Va.
His first novel, Divining Rod, was published in 1998, and
his collection of short stories, Dogfight & Other Stories,
won a PEN/Hemingway Foundation Special Citation in 1999. His
fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review, GQ, Esquire,
Mid-American Review, Story, Playboy, and elsewhere. Additionally,
his work has been included in the anthologies New Stories from
the South, Best American Mystery Stories, Stories from the Blue
Moon Café, and Scribner’s Best of the Fiction Workshops.
Knight has also received the Dictionary of Literary Biography’s
Best First Novel Award, a New Writing Award from the Fellowship
of Southern Writers, Playboy magazine’s College Fiction Prize,
and a Henfield Foundation Award for Fiction.
The Center for Writers will also host the critically acclaimed
and award-winning poets Stuart Dischell on Dec. 8 and Lucie
Brock-Broido on Dec. 15.
For more information, contact Christopher Mapp at (601) 266-4497
or visit the Web at www.centerforwriters.com.
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Praise for Michael Knight’s Good Night, Nobody:
Jonathan Miles, The New York Times Book Review
“Knight has the rare power to...invest [a setting] with a vitality...as...intense
as the pulsebeats of his characters.”
Barbara Quick, The San Francisco Chronicle
“An example of the nuanced lyricism, compression and emotional
richness that make short stories, when they work, so...satisfying.”
Kevin Allman, The Washington Post Book World
“If good writing is like a good suit?durable, seamless and
decidedly non-flashy?then Michael Knight [is a] master tailor.”
Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe
“Knight’s characters remain touchingly human, thanks to his
subtle, if sardonic, sense of humor and his essential authorial
decency.”
Ginny Merdes, The Seattle Times
“Knight makes the most of characters with little...going for
them. His characters discover their mettle in everyday struggles.”
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Last updated:
12/23/05 |
