Ander Monson
The 2009-2010 Writers Series welcomes author Ander Monson to read from his work at 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 13 in the Boxwood Room at the Elston Inn & Conference Center, Sweet Briar College. Admission is free.
Monson is known for his inventive and groundbreaking works of fiction, poetry and nonfiction. To date he has produced a decoder wheel, several chapbooks and limited-edition letterpress collaborations and the Web site, otherelectricities.com, which acts as a companion to his books. In 2005 Monson published the novel, Other Electricities, and the poetry collection Vacationland. In 2007, Monson’s book of essays, Neck Deep and Other Predicaments, received praise for its new ideas and innovative use of the essay form. Monson’s latest works, scheduled for release during 2010, are The Available World, a collection of poetry, and Vanishing Point, a collection of essays.
“[Monson] is one of the most brilliant and innovative young writers of today,” said David Griffith, assistant professor of English at Sweet Briar. “He does it all — poetry, fiction and nonfiction — with ease, or at least it seems that way, which is the mark of a great artist.
“His book of essays Neck Deep and Other Predicaments, which won the Graywolf Press prize a few years back, changed the landscape for people pursuing the essay as a literary genre. The essays in that book are playful, funny, heartbreaking and erudite all at the same time. Some of them don’t even look like essays — there are outlines and indexes, pages of punctuation meant to look like snow. His new book of essays, Vanishing Point, looks like it’s going to push things even farther.”
Monson lives and teaches in Tucson, Ariz., where he edits the magazine DIAGRAM and the New Michigan Press.
For more information about the reading, contact John Brown at “brown @ sbc.edu” (remove spaces and quotes).
