Home Official News Releases Drake series to wrap up by honoring emerging writers

Drake series to wrap up by honoring emerging writers

News Photo
Fiction writer Andrew Porter

Drake University’s 2009-2010 Writers and Critics Series will conclude with two events, featuring readings by Drake students, faculty and friends.  

  • Tuesday, April 27 — Andrew Porter, winner of Drake University’s Emerging Writer Award in Short Fiction, will read from his prose at 7:30 p.m. in the Cowles Library Reading Room, 2725 University Ave.
  • Thursday, April 29 — Drake Writers’ Night invites students, faculty, staff and alumni to read from their work at 7 p.m. in the Honors Lounge of Medbury Hall, 2730 Forest Ave.

Porter, assistant professor of creative writing at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, is the author of a short story collection, “The Theory of Light and Matter.” His collection won the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and Foreword Magazine’s 2008 Book of the Year Award for Short Fiction.

In addition, Porter has received fellowships from Vassar College, the University of Iowa, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. He also was the recipient of the Artist Foundation of San Antonio Award, the Glenna Luschei Award and a Pushcart Prize.

Porter’s fiction also has appeared in One Story, Epoch, The Ontario Review, Prairie Schooner and The Antioch Review, among others. His work has been read on NPR’s “Selected Shorts” and was named one of the 100 Distinguished Stories of 2007 by Best American Short Stories.

The Writers and Critics Series is sponsored by Drake’s English Department and its Center for the Humanities.

For more information, contact Jennifer Perrine at 515-271-4161 or jennifer.perrine@drake.edu.