This American Life humorist David Rakoff to read at Lesley University
Posted May 25, 2010
Humorist, essayist and This American Life contributor David Rakoff headlines a week of free public readings at the June residency of Lesley University’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing.
David Rakoff, photo by Paul Roossin
Rakoff will read at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 30 at Lesley’s Marran Theater, 47 Oxford St., Cambridge.
Known for his wry outlook on contemporary life - episodes involve a new-age fast/cleanse, climbing New Hampshire’s Mt. Monadnock, and joining a retreat with Steven Segal - Rakoff is a regular contributor to Public Radio International’s This American Life, as well as The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of two nonfiction collections, Fraud and Don’t Get Too Comfortable. A third, Half Empty, will be released in September. He is also a correspondent at Outside and writer-at-large for GQ.
“David Rakoff is part of a cabal of writers reestablishing wit as a primary tool of social commentary in nonfiction writing,” said Steven Cramer, director of Lesley University’s MFA program. “Fans of Ira Glass and David Sedaris - Rakoff’s friends and contemporaries - are certain to find similar pleasures in Rakoff’s essays.”
Also reading is Deerfield, Mass. poet Patrick Donnelly, author of The Charge and the forthcoming Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin. An associate editor at Poetry International, his work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares and Slate, as well as various anthologies.
Patrick Donnelly
MFA Writing Faculty giving readings are: Sharon Bryan, Pat Lowery Collins, Jane Brox, Hester Kaplan, Sinan Ünel, Rachel Kadish and Bill Lychack.
All readings are free and open to the public. The events are held at Marran Theater in the McKenna Student Center, 47 Oxford St., Cambridge. Entrance is on Mellen Street.
Friday, June 25
7:15 pm
Sharon Bryan, Poetry
Pat Lowery Collins, Writing for Young People
Saturday, June 26
7 pm
Jane Brox, Nonfiction
Hester Kaplan, Fiction
Sunday, June 27
7 pm
Patrick Donnelly, Visiting Writer, Poetry
Sinan Ünel, Writing for Stage and Screen
Monday, June 28
7 pm
Rachel Kadish, Fiction
Bill Lychack, Fiction
Wednesday, June 30
7 pm
David Rakoff, Visiting Writer, Nonfiction