Monday, July 25, 2011

Today's Events:
All posted events are located in the Schar College of Education Ronk Lecture Hall, Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio and are free and open to the public.


1-2:30 p.m. Poetry Faculty Craft Seminar: "'What Else Is True?' Encompassing Complexity" with Ruth L. Schwartz

7-8 p.m. Visiting Writer Reading: Rhina Espaillat

About Today's Presenters:

Rhina P. Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat, visiting writer in poetry, was born in the Dominican Republic in 1932, has lived in the United States since 1939, and was educated in the public school system of New York City. She graduated from Hunter College and did graduate work at Queens College, also a branch of the City University of New York. Espaillat taught high school English in New York City for several years, and writes poetry and prose both in English and in her native Spanish. Her poems, essays, narratives and translations have appeared in numerous magazines, on many websites, and in over fifty anthologies.


Espaillat has published eleven collections of her work: Lapsing to Grace (Bennett & Kitchel, 1992); Where Horizons Go (Truman State University Press, 1998), which won the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize; Rehearsing Absence (University of Evansville Press, 2001), which won the 2001 Richard Wilbur Award; "Mundo y Palabra/The World and the Word" (Oyster River Press, 2001), a bilingual chapbook that is part of a series titled Walking to Windward: 21 New England Poets; a chapbook in the Pudding House invitational series, titled "Rhina P. Espaillat: Greatest Hits, 1942 - 2001" (Pudding House Press, 2003); The Shadow I Dress In (David Robert Books, 2004), winner of the 2003 Stanzas Prize; a chapbook titled "The Story-teller's Hour" (Scienter Press, 2004); Playing at Stillness (Truman State University Press, 2005); a bilingual collection of poems and essays titled Agua de dos rios, published under the auspieces of the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Culture (Editora Buho, 2006); a bilingual collection of short stories titled El olor de la memoria/The Scent of Memory (CEDIBIL, 2007); and a poetry collection titled Her Place in These Designs (Truman State University Press, 2008).

Ruth L. Schwartz

Ruth L. Schwartz

Ruth L. Schwartz, poetry, is the author of four books of poems, each the winner of a national award: Dear Good Naked Morning (Autumn House Press, 2005), selected by Alicia Ostriker for the 2004 Autumn House Poetry Prize; Edgewater (HarperCollins, 2002), a National Poetry Series winner chosen by Jane Hirshfield; Singular Bodies (Anhinga Press, 2001), recipient of the 2000 Anhinga Prize for Poetry; and Accordion Breathing and Dancing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), winner of the 1994 Associated Writing Programs Competition. Her fifth collection of poems, Bone River, will be published by Autumn House Press in 2012. Ruth is also the author of a memoir, Death in Reverse: A Love Story (Michigan State University Press, 2004), and her creative nonfiction has appeared in the Utne Reader, The Sun, and numerous anthologies.


Recipient of over a dozen national writing awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Astraea Foundation, Ruth is also a lifelong explorer of consciousness and healing. In addition to her M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Ruth has a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology, and offers workshops and retreats nationwide on the theme “The Writer As Shaman: Words as a Portal to the Soul.” Her website is http://www.thewriterasshaman.com/.