In Praise of the Essay

Symposium: In Praise of the Essay: Practice & Form

Co-Sponsored by the English Department and Creative Writing Program at Fordham University

Saturday, April 24, 2010 | Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus Atrium

For Registration Please Call: (717) 357-9609. You will also need to complete this form (includes complete schedule) and bring it with you to the symposium. There is a $150 attendance fee.

Keynote Speaker: Robert Atwan, series editor, Best American Essays. Featured speakers include: Jerald Walker, Vivian Gornick, Brian Doyle, Lia Purpura and Emily Grosholz. Panelists include: Paul Lisicky, New York University; Mimi Schwartz, Richard Stockton College; Michael Steinberg, Pine Manor College; Elizabeth Stone, Fordham University; and Linda Underhill, Chatham University.

About the Presenters and Panelists

Robert Atwan is the series editor of Best American Essays, which he founded in 1985. He has edited five college anthologies and textbooks, seven poetry anthologies, and a short story collection. His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, the Iowa Review, the Kenyon Review, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, River Teeth, and elsewhere.

Brian Doyle is the author of seven works of nonfiction, including The Grail, The Wet Engine, and Leaping: Revelations & Epiphanies, as well as two collections of “proems.” A novel, Mink River, is forthcoming in fall 2010. His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, American Scholar, Gourmet, Harper’s, Orion, the Times of London, and elsewhere. He is the editor of Portland Magazine.

Vivian Gornick is the author of many books, including Women in Science, Fierce Attachments, The Situation and the Story, Approaching Eye Level, and The End of the Novel of Love. Her essays and articles have appeared in the Nation, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at the New School.

Emily Grosholz is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Feuilles/Leaves; three books of philosophy; and the editor of essay collections on Simone de Beauvoir, W. E. B. DuBois, Maxine Kumin, and the philosophy of mathematics. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, Hudson Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. She teaches at Pennsylvania State University.

Lia Purpura is the author of two collections of essays, On Looking and Increase, and several collections of poems, including King Baby, Stone Sky Lifting, and Brighter the Veil. Her work has appeared in AGNI, the Georgia Review, Orion, the New Republic, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at Loyola University and the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA Program.

Jerald Walker is the author of Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion and Redemption. His essays have appeared in Best African American Essays, Best American Essays, Brothers: 26 Stories of Love and Rivalry, Chronicle of Higher Education, the Iowa Review, Missouri Review, Mother Jones, North American Review, Oxford American, and elsewhere. He teaches at Bridgewater State College.

Paul Lisicky is the author of Lawnboy and Famous Builder. A new novel, Lumina Harbor, is forthcoming. His work has appeared in Boulevard, Flash Fiction, Hotel Amerika, Open House, Ploughshares, Short Takes, and many other anthologies and magazines. He teaches at New York University.

Mimi Schwartz is the author of five books, including Good Neighbors, Bad Times. Echoes of My Father’s German Village; Thoughts from a Queen-sized Bed; and, with Sondra Perl, Writing True: the Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Creative Nonfiction, the Missouri Review, the New York Times, and elsewhere. She is Professor Emerita at Richard Stockton College.

Mike Steinberg is founding editor of Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction. He has written or co-written five books, including a memoir, Still Pitching, and, with Robert Root, an anthology, The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction. He is writer-in-residence in the Solstice/Pine Manor College low-residency MFA program.

Elizabeth Stone is the author of Black Sheep and Kissing Cousins: How Our Family Stories Shape Us, The Hunter College Campus Schools for the Gifted, and A Boy I Once Knew: What a Teacher Learned from Her Student. Her personal essays and reportage have appeared in Chronicle of Higher Education, the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, and elsewhere. She teaches at Fordham University.

Linda Underhill is the author of two collections of essays, The Unequal Hours: Moments of Being in the Natural World and The Way of the Woods: Journeys through American Forests. Her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and elsewhere. She teaches in the MFA program at Chatham University and at Corning Community College.