Readings in the Sowell Collection

Spring Semester 2021

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The Sowell Collection Conference has been held in Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library since 2012.  Sadly, we realized that we could not host a conference on campus until everyone can safely travel again.  Because we want to stay in touch with our community, writers, students and faculty here and across the country, to maintain connections and to continue conversations, the Sowell Collection will be hosting a series of virtual readings and discussions.  Last fall we hosted three writers:  Debra Gwartney, J. Drew Lanham, and Howard Norman.  For the spring semester we will host: A. Kendra Greene, Toni Jensen, and Gretel Ehrlich.

 

A. Kendra Greene
The Museum of Whales You Will Never See: And Other Excursions to Iceland's Most Unusual Museums Tuesday, Feb. 23 - 7 p.m.
A. Kendra Greene is a writer and artist who has worked at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Chicago History Museum, the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History, and the Dallas Museum of Art, where she is a writer in residence. She has an MFA in nonfiction and a graduate certificate in book arts from the University of Iowa. She lives in Dallas, where she is visiting assistant professor at the University of Texas, a guest artist at Nasher Sculpture Center, and an associate editor at Southwest Review.

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Toni Jensen
Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land
Tuesday, March 23 - 7 p.m.
Toni Jensen teaches in the MFA programs at the University of Arkansas and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is a 2020 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and her work has been published in Orion, Catapult, and Ecotone. She is Metis.

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Gretel Ehrlich
Unsolaced: Along the Way to All That Is
Monday, April 26 - 7 p.m.
In addition to the recent publication of Unsolaced, Gretel Ehrlich is the author of Facing the Wave, Heart Mountain, The Solace of Open Spaces, and This Cold Heaven, among other works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Ehrlich studied at Bennington College and UCLA film school. She divides her time between Montana and Hawaii.

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The Sowell Family Collection in Literature, Community and the Natural World is a valuable resource for students, faculty and researchers. We hope that our virtual gatherings will be a new way for educators, students, and writers to meet and exchange ideas. Community, and all that that word entails, is a founding principle of our collection.

For additional information, please contact Kristin Loyd.