Poet, novelist Liz Kay will open virtual Visiting Writers Series Sept. 23

The Ripon College Visiting Writers Series will be held virtually this year, and members of the greater Ripon community can attend via a Zoom link.

Two session are scheduled for the fall semester.

• Poet and novelist Liz Kay will read Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 7:30 p.m. She holds a master of fine arts from the University of Nebraska, where she was the recipient of both an Academy of American Poets Prize and the Wendy Fort Foundation Prize for exemplary work in poetry.

  Her poems have appeared in such journals as Beloit Poetry Journal, “RHINO,” Nimrod, Willow Springs, The New York Quarterly, Iron Horse Literary Review, Redactions and Sugar House Review. She is the author of the books Something to Help Me Sleep, The Witch Tells The Story And Makes It True and Monsters: A Love Story.

  She lives in Omaha, Nebraska. More information is available at lizkay.net.

• Karen Tei Yamashita will read Wednesday, Oct. 21. She is a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

  Yamashita is the author of Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Brazil-Maru, Tropic of Orange, Circle K Cycles, I Hotel, Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance and Letters to Memory.

  I Hotel was selected as a finalist for the National Book Award and was awarded the California Book Award, American Book Award, Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Award and Association for Asian American Studies Book Award.

  More information is available here.

Anyone who would like to attend the virtual readings can send an email to Associate Professor of English Megan Gannon at [email protected] to receive a Zoom invitation.

(Photo: Liz Kay, left, and Karen Tei Yamashita)