Award-Winning Poet to Take Part in Working Writers Series at Holy Cross

Award-winning poet Mary Jo Salter will host a discussion of the writer’s craft at 3:30 p.m. in Fenwick 330, followed by a reading of her poetry as part of the Working Writers Series at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 16 in the Levis Browsing Room, Dinand Library at the College of the Holy Cross.  Both events are free and open to the public. 

Salter is a poet, editor, essayist, playwright, lyricist, and children’s book author. She is best-known for her numerous volumes of published poetry and for her work as a lyricist. Her most recent book is her sixth collection of poems, “A Phone Call to the Future: New and Selected Poems” (March 2008). Previous publications include: “Henry Purcell in Japan (1985); “Unfinished Painting,” which was the 1989 Lamont Selection for the year's most distinguished second volume of poetry; “Sunday Skaters,” which was nominated in 1994 for the National Book Critics Circle Award; “A Kiss in Space” (1999), and “Open Shutters” (2003), which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In addition, Salter has published a children’s book called “The Moon Comes Home” (1989), and a play that is titled “Falling Bodies,” which was first produced in 2004.

She has also won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.  In addition to writing poetry, Salter is the poetry editor at the New Republic and co-editor of the fourth and fifth editions of the “Norton Anthology of Poetry.”  She teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

The 2011-12 Working Writers Series will continue throughout the spring semester with the following events:

• Thursday, March 15 – Scott Russell Sanders will discuss the nonfiction writer’s craft and talk on the vocation of the writer, which is sponsored by The McFarland Center. • Thursday, March 28 – Danielle Evans will read selections from her fiction. • Thursday, April 12 – Andrew Solomon will perform a reading of his nonfiction, sponsored by the Jenks Chair of Contemporary American Letters.

The Working Writers Series was formerly known as the Visiting Writers Series.