VOICE Reading Series | Thursday | 7:30 p.m. | Krannert Art Museum
The U of I MFA program’s VOICE Reading Series is back in action tomorrow night. If you’re looking for reasons to come check it out (as if you didn’t already have enough) read a little about the readers below. Hey, they might even provide you with enough information for you to become infatuated. Perhaps you’ll use the information below to start tracking their patterns, begin a ritual in which you follow them around town, learn their ways and such. You know, plan your schedule around theirs, learn intimate details about their restroom habits and so on. I, for example, have heard that Mike Don leaves his laptop unattended while taking a number two at Aroma Cafe.
Hell, maybe you could start your stalking by attending the reading tomorrow night.
Michael Don
Where are you from and what’s it famous for (besides you)?
St. Louis. The 1904 World’s Fair. Not much has happened since then.
If you could steal famous book and pass it off as your own work, what would you pick?
The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
Best place in C-U to pretend that you’re writing and/or stir the creative juices?
Aroma Café
What’s influencing your work these days?
Flat tires, a once seemingly hidden camera that turned out to be just a black plastic bag caught in the branches of an oak tree, the idea of “heteronormativity,” gender, race, and of course blood, sweat, urine, poop and my dentist.
What should we be on the lookout for when you read for VOICE?
Rotting vegetables.
Sean Karns
Where are you from and what’s it famous for (besides you)?
Springfield, Ohio. The first 4-H Club was established in Springfield in 1902
If you could steal famous book and pass it off as your own work, what would you pick?
The Dream Songs
Best place in C-U to pretend that you’re writing and/or stir the creative juices?
The Blind Pig
What’s influencing your work these days?
Ai’s Cruelty and Killing Floor.
What should we be on the lookout for when you read for VOICE?
Can you control your pathos?
Lindsey Drager
Where are you from and what’s it famous for (besides you)?
I’m from a town in Michigan that’s technically a suburb of Toledo, Ohio. Toledo serves as the headquarters for Jeep and the glass capital of the U.S., birthplace to Katie Holmes, Gloria Steinem and Jamie Farr.
In 1835 Toledo was the cause of a war between Ohio and Michigan, both of whom wanted the city because of access to Lake Erie. In the end one person died. Ohio got Toledo. Michigan got the UP.
I’ve seen a map made during the war in which the city is a slim triangle between the bottom of Michigan and the top of Ohio, unclaimed and belonging to no one.
If you could steal famous book and pass it off as your own work, what would you pick?
Toomer’s Cane, but I don’t think I’d get away with it.
Best place in C-U to pretend that you’re writing and/or stir the creative juices?
The seat in the far Northwest corner on the top floor of the Champaign Public Library, preferably in the early afternoon before they shut the blinds.
What’s influencing your work these days?
The transgender community, auto racing, stereotypes concerning librarians, quantum mechanics, Matlock, and divorce.
What should we be on the lookout for when you read for VOICE?
Lookout for a story just shy of not bad.