Bruce Snider and Lysley Tenorio return to Stonington

 

BRUCE SNIDER, former James Merrill House Writer-in-Residence, returns to Stonington to read with short story writer, Lysley Tenoroio at a very special event at the LaGrua Center. Both writers will be reading from new, highly acclaimed books. Snider has just released his second volume of poems, “Paradise, Indiana,” which won the Lena-Miles Wever Todd poetry Prize. Shaped by the author’s experiences growing up in the midwest, the poems in this book envision a seldom recorded rural America, one where everything exists side by side: the county fair and an abandoned small town gay bar, farmers and cross-dressers, death and hope, beauty and despair.

 

Bruce Snider previous book of poems, “The Year We Studied Women,” won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Gettysburg Review and Best American Poetry 2012. Currently he teaches at Standford University, and during the 2012-2013 academic year he will be the Jenny McKean Moore Fellow at George Washington University.

 

Also reading with Snider will be Lysley Tenorio, whose debut collection of short stories “Monstress,” was released in February to wide acclaim. The collection has received glowing reviews from NPR, the Los Angeles

 

Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and    the  Boston Globe, among sources, and was a Slate Magazine pick of the week. According Chang-Rae Lee, New York Times bestselling author of “The Surrendered,”  “The stories in Monstress announce the debut of an electric literary talent.” 

 

Tenorio’s stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, Manoa, The Chicago Tribune, and The Best New American Voices and Pushcart Prize anthologies. Born in the Philippines, Tenorio currently lives in San Francisco, and is an Associate Professor at Saint Mary’s College of California.

 

This reading is something of a homecoming for both writers. Snider wrote many of the poems of “Paradise, Indiana” while in residence at the James Merrill House in Stonington, and Tenorio spent several months with Snider during that period. Both became widely recognized and beloved figures in the village. 

                  

The reading will be from 6:00 to 7:00 PM on Thursday April 12 at The La Grua Center, 32 Water Street, Stonington CT 06378. A book signing and reception will follow. All James Merrill House events are free and open to the public. For more information call 401-524-3450.