Book prize symposium bringing 4 authors Feb. 15-16 to discuss writing

The Department of English, the Creative Writing Program, Prairie Schooner and the University of Nebraska Press will host the 2010 Prairie Schooner Book Prize Symposium, Feb. 15 and 16 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Recent Prairie Schooner book prize winners Paul Guest, Anne Finger, Mari L'Esperance and Kara Candito will read from their winning collections and participate in panel discussions on writing and the writing life. All events are free and open to the public, in the Dudley Bailey Library on the second floor of Andrews Hall, 14th and T streets on the UNL City Campus [map].

The first panel, 3 p.m. Feb. 15, is "Sources and Resources: Inspiration, Research, and Developing Projects," with Guest and L'Esperance. The first reading is at 7:30 that evening when Finger and Candito read from their work.

A panel Feb. 16 at noon is: "Revision and Advice: Who Do You Trust and How Do You Know When It's Over" with Finger and Candito. That afternoon at 3, Guest and L'Esperance will read from their work.

Prairie Schooner 2006 prize-winner Guest's first collection, "The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World," won the 2002 New Issues Poetry Prize. His poems appear in Poetry, The Southern Review, Slate, Crazyhorse, Verse and elsewhere. He lives in Chattanooga, Tenn. "Notes for my Body Double," was published in 2007 by the University of Nebraska Press. He is a visiting professor of English at the University of West Georgia. He is the recipient of a 2007 Whiting Award. Recently, Ecco acquired his memoir, "One More Theory About Happiness," plus a collection of poems.

L'Esperance, 2007 winner for "The Darkened Temple," is a graduate of New York University's creative writing program, where she was a New York Times Co. Foundation Creative Writing Fellow. L'Esperance's poems have appeared in Pequod, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Barnabe Mountain Review, Salamander, and several other periodicals and an anthology. In 2002, L'Esperance received a Pushcart Prize nomination for her poem "Pantoum of the Blind Cambodian Women," published in The Worcester Review. L'Esperance has been awarded residency grants from Dorland Mountain Arts Colony and Hedgebrook. She has taught creative writing at University of New York, Merritt College in Oakland, Calif., and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She is training to be a psychotherapist and lives in Oakland.

Candito won the 2008 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in poetry her manuscript, "Taste of Cherry." Her poems and critical prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Best New Poets 2007, Poet Lore, the Florida Review and the Pedestal Review. She has received awards for her poetry, including an Academy of American Poets prize and a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. She has worked in the publishing industry in New York City, taught English in Rome and earned a M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Florida State University, where she specializes in poetry and literary theory.

Finger won the 2008 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in short fiction for her manuscript, "Call Me Ahab." Finger has published four other books, including two works of nonfiction, "Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio" (St. Martin's Press) and "Past Due: A Story of Disability, Pregnancy and Birth" (Seal Press); a collection of short stories, "Basic Skills" (University of Missouri Press); and a novel, "Bone Truth" (Coffee House Press). She has taught creative writing at Wayne State University and the University of Texas, as a writer-in-residence at the Woman's Building in L.A and the San Francisco Independent Living Resource Center, and in elementary, middle, and high schools. She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, Djerassi, Centrum and Hedgebrook. Her short fiction has appeared in the Southern Review, Kenyon Review and Ploughshares, among other journals.

Prairie Schooner ( http://prairieschooner.unl.edu) is a national literary quarterly published with the support of the UNL English Department and the University of Nebraska Press.