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The Efroymson Center for Creative Writing

Zen memoirist Karen Maezen Miller will open the inaugural series of visiting writers and speakers at the Efroymson Center for Creative Writing, 530 W. Hampton Dr., the new home for creative writing at Butler University.

Miller's talk at 7 p.m. Feb. 15 will kick off a spring series that also will include a conversation with novelist Nicole Krauss (March 6), presentations by graphic novelist Ariel Schrag (March 22) and literary blogger Maud Newton (March 28), a q-and-a with writer Maile Meloy (April 3), a public discussion of work by Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri (April 14) and a presentation by local game designer and cultural theorist John Gosney (April 27).

All events in the series are free and open to the public without tickets. For more information, contact Michael Dahlie at eccw@butler.edu or (317) 940-8733.

"As a sister program to the already excellent Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series, the Efroymson Center Series will focus on literary craft and innovation, presenting speakers who teach not just what to read, but how to write," Dahlie said. "Featured guests will either be local writers who reflect the vitality of Central Indiana's literary scene, or writers of national reputation on the cutting edge of the literary world."

The Efroymson Center for Creative Writing is a gift of the Efroymson Family Fund, a fund of the Central Indiana Community Foundation. More information about each speaker follows.

 

Karen Maezen Miller: Memoirs of a Zen Priest

7 p.m. Feb. 15

        Miller, who writes about spirituality in everyday life, will talk about her memoir Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life. Her writing is also included in several anthologies. The two most recent are The Mindfulness Revolution (Shambhala, March 2011) and The Best Buddhist Writing 2011 (Shambhala, Sept. 2011).

 

A Conversation with Novelist Nicole Krauss

Time TBA, March 6

        Nicole Krauss is the author of the international bestsellers Great House, a finalist for the National Book Award and the Orange Prize, and The History of Love, which won the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Ėtranger, and was short-listed for the Orange, Médicis, and Femina prizes. Her first novel, Man Walks Into a Room, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for First Fiction. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and Best American Short Stories, and her books have been translated into more than 35 languages.  She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

        Krauss will make a more formal presentation at 7:30 p.m. March 6 in the Atherton Union Reilly Room, part of Butler University's Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series.

 

Ariel Schrag and the Graphic Novel

7 p.m. March 22

        Ariel Schrag, a staff writer for the HBO series How to Make It in America, was born in Berkeley, Calif. She is the author of the autobiographical graphic novels Awkward, Definition, Potential, and Likewise, which chronicle her four years at Berkeley High School. Potential is being developed into a major motion picture by Killer Films (Boys Don't Cry, Far From Heaven, Mildred Pierce), for which Schrag wrote the screenplay adaptation. She was also a writer for the third and fourth seasons of the hit Showtime series The L Word.

        Schrag's illustrations and comics have appeared in publications such as The San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, Juxtapoz, and Paper. Her original art has appeared in museums and galleries across the United States as well as in Austria, Spain, Canada, and the United Kingdom.  Schrag is the subject of the short documentary film Confession: A Film About Ariel Schrag by director/producer Sharon Barnes, which won the Audience Award at New York New Festival.

 

Maud Newton and the Art of the Literary Blog

7 p.m. March 28

        Maud Newton has written about books, culture, and ideas for the The New York Times Magazine, Bookforum, The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, The Paris Review Daily, Granta, The American Prospect, The Boston Globe, NPR's Books We Like, The Washington Post Book World, and many other publications and organizations. Her fiction and personal essays have also appeared in Granta, Swink, and other literary magazines and anthologies.

        Newton's nearly 10-year-old blog, which can be found at maudnewton.com, has been praised, criticized, and quoted in The New York Times Book Review, The Times, Forbes, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, The New York Times, the UK Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, Poets & Writers Magazine, The Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle, The New Yorker, Book Magazine, London's Evening Standard, The Scotsman, Slate, the Denver Post, Canada's National Post, and many other publications.

 

Q & A with Maile Meloy

9:30 a.m. April 3

        Maile Meloy is the author of the story collection Half in Love, the novels Liars and Saints and A Family Daughter, and the new collection Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, which was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2009 by The New York Times Book Review and a best book of the year by the Los Angeles Times and Amazon.com.

Meloy's stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, and other publications, and she has received The Paris Review's Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her new novel, The Apothecary, is her first for young readers. She grew up in Helena, Mont., and now lives in Los Angeles.

Meloy will make a more formal presentation at 7:30 p.m. April 3 in the Atherton Union Reilly Room, part of Butler University's Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series.

 

Book Club: Jhumpa Lahiri

2 p.m. April 14

        Butler faculty and members of the Indianapolis community will meet to discuss the work of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake in advance of her reading at 7:30 p.m. April 16 in the Atherton Union Reilly Room, part of Butler University's Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series.

 

Narrative in a Virtual World: John Gosney

7 p.m. April 27

        Local game designer and cultural theorist John Gosney will discuss the intersection of technology and contemporary storytelling. Gosney is the author of Beyond Reality: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming and Blogging For Teens. He received an M.A. in English from Butler University and currently is faculty liaison for the Learning Technologies Division of Indiana University.