Mark Webster Reading Series

The Mark Webster series remembers the poetry and life of Mark Webster. Webster's work is available in the Hopwood Room.

One poet and one fiction writer, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. There will be an intermission between the two readings. The Mark Webster reading series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends: a Mark Webster reading is an excellent way to spend a Friday night.

All readings will be held in the Helmut Stern Auditorium, University of Michigan Museum of Art (525 State Street), unless otherwise noted. Readings are free and open to the public.

Fall, 2011

Mark Webster Reading--Jim Redmond (poetry) and Anna Brenner (fiction)
Friday, September 23, 2011-Friday, September 23, 2011

Anna Brenner was born in Ohio and raised in California. She received a B.A. in English from Amherst College in 2009. Her nonfiction has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern.

Jim Redmond is an MFA student in Poetry at the University of Michigan.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Mark Webster Reading--Leah Falk (poetry) and Anna Sheaffer (fiction)
Friday, September 30, 2011

Leah Falk was born in the great city of Pittsburgh and has been steadily moving her way west through the heartland ever since. Her poems and reviews have appeared in a number of journals. In a previous life she was an elementary school science teacher.

Anna Sheafferwas born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and earned a B.A. in comparative literature at Princeton University.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Mark Webster Reading--Esteban Ismael (poetry) and Lionel Beasley (fiction)
Friday, October 21, 2011

Esteban Ismael is a hip-hop-writer-turned-poet from San Diego. He earned his BA from the University of California-Riverside, and was granted both the UC Berkeley Ina Coolbrith Poetry Prize and a scholarship to the Idyllwild Poetry Workshop in 2009. As a spoken word artist, he has performed at venues in San Diego, the Inland Empire, and LA, and has had the benefit of opening for Nas’s tour band, Mulatto. He has worked for several non-profits, including his current internship with the incredible leaders at 826michigan and Ozone House. He is currently working on a collection of poems, thanks in part to a Rackham International Research Award, that focus on the impending Mayan apocalypse.

Lionel Beasley has a B.A. in English and History, as well as an M.A. in English, from the University of Vermont. His poetry has been published in Vantage Point. Currently, Lionel attends the University of Michigan, where he is pursuing an M.F.A. in fiction.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Mark Webster Reading--Kyle Hodges (poetry) and Rebecca Scherm (fiction)
Friday, November 04, 2011

Kyle Hodges was raised in Louisiana and has lived in Houston and Chicago.

Rebecca Scherm is from Kentucky. She received her BA from New York University, and she has worked as a cookbook editor, biscuit saleswoman, and antiques appraiser. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart prize, but she hasn’t won anything. She is working on a novel and stories about girls, boys, mothers, fathers, lies, and misunderstandings.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Mark Webster Reading--Allister MacMartin (poetry) and Rocco Samuele (fiction)
Friday, November 18, 2011

Allister MacMartin was born and raised in central Vermont. In 2009 he received a BA in English from Macalester College (he knows). His favorite author is Kurt Vonnegut. He thought he was going to write fiction, but then this poetry thing happened. Recently he sold a poem to an acquaintance for $40 and used it to buy more beer.

Rocco Samuele spent six years working as an aerospace engineer in Los Angeles, California before moving to Ann Arbor to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in prose writing from the University of Michigan. His fiction has appeared in Opium Magazine and Muster Magazine, and he is the founder of the outdoor adventure publication Trekker Magazine. He is currently working on a short story collection.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Mark Webster Reading--Kendra Langford Shaw (fiction) and Jennifer Lee Riemenschnieder (fiction)
Friday, December 09, 2011

Kendra Langford Shaw grew up on an Alaska island and a Montana ranch, and is currently at work on stories set in an historically ambiguous, Arctic locale. Lots of wild animals are involved. Her short fiction has appeared in The Antioch Review and StoryQuarterly.

Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Jennifer Riemenschneider recently completed her BA in English at the University of Michigan. During her childhood, she spent Augusts in Georgia at her grandparents’ house; those hot and hazy weeks inform her writing now. Currently, she lives in Chelsea, where she stays busy mothering her three children.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Winter, 2012

Mark Webster Reading--Audra Puchalski (poetry) and James Pinto (fiction)
Friday, January 20, 2012

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Mark Webster Reading--Audra Puchalski (poetry) and James Pinto (fiction)
Friday, January 20, 2012

Audra Puchalskiwas born, grew up, and went to college in Michigan. She studied the humanities in the Residential College at the University of Michigan, and also Latin American literature. Then she lived briefly in Buenos Aires, then she came back, and now here she is. She enjoys hiking, tango, and feathers.

James Pintohas earned wages as a farmer, librarian, management consultant, construction worker, pie vendor, teacher, photo archiver, softball coach, travel writer, and chauffeur. He is now a student.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Mark Webster Reading--John Ganiard (poetry) and Dan Keane (fiction)
Friday, January 27, 2012

John Ganiard is from various parts of the Midwest. He received a BA in philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis. His music journalism has appeared in Foxy Digitalis and The Ampeater Review. A couple of his poems were published outdoors. John is a Pisces.

Dan Keane spent three years as the Associated Press correspondent in Bolivia, and now regularly lies through his teeth about the whole experience. He grew up next to a freeway in suburban Phoenix but claims his native Texas when anyone asks. A painting of his right leg will debut at White Cube in London in November 2011.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Mark Webster Reading--Ali Shapiro (poetry) and Nania Lee (fiction)
Friday, February 10, 2012

Ali Shapiro's poems have appeared in The Southeast Review, Linebreak, and Redivider, among others. She's won various prizes for her writing and other exploits, including a Dorothy Sargeant Rosenberg Poetry Prize, a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, and Bertlesmann World of Expression scholarship.

Nania grew up in the Detroit suburbs and received her B.A. in English from Kalamazoo College and her M.S. in Rehabilitative Speech in Hearing Sciences from The George Washington University. After working as a medical speech pathologist for four years, she came to UM to pursue writing, more specifically—her desire to write fiction inspired by her Korean-American family. During the summer of 2011, she and her mother traveled to Pohang and Seoul—Nania’s first trip back since her family’s immigration in 1982. There she was given the opportunity to meet over 30 of her maternal relatives. Aside from reading and writing, in her spare time she enjoys eating delicious food in sizable portions and just barely escaping serious injury in yoga class.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Mark Webster Reading--Trilbe Wynne (poetry) and Akil Kumarasamy (fiction)
Friday, March 09, 2012

Trilbe Wynne is a Chicago native whose roots extend through several Caribbean cultures: French, Kreyòl, Spanish and Spanglish. Informed by her work for Wall Street firms, her poetry is obsessed with commerce, pride, and heritage. Trilbe graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University and holds a graduate fellowship at the University of Michigan.

Akil Kumarasamy is from Edison, New Jersey. She attended Barnard College and received a bachelor of arts in Economics.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

Mark Webster Reading--Matt Moser Miller (poetry) and Carlus Henderson (fiction)
Friday, March 30, 2012

Matt Moser Miller is a born-and-raised Ohioan. He studies creative writing at Denison University and the University of Aberdeen, where he received Aberdeen's Calder Prize for Poetry. When not wishing he were more Scottish or brewing high-quality ales, he co-hosts the Mark Webster Reading Series at the University of Michigan with Carlus Henderson

A former recipient of The NFAA Gold Award as well as short-listed for The Presidential Scholar’s Award, Carlus Henderson has been a high school teacher in New Orleans, a cheese salesman in Vermont, and a dockworker along the Eastern seaboard. He splits his time, his writing, and his imagination between South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana.

Time: 7:00PM
Location: Helmut Stern Auditorium, U of M Museum of Art
Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/webster.asp
Contact: carlus@umich.edu

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