November Literary Reading: UAF MFA Faculty

Join Fairbanks Arts Association and the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ MFA Writing Faculty for an annual Literary Reading and presentation! Readings by Gerri Brightwell, Daryl Farmer, Joseph Holt, Nicole Stellon O’Donnell, and Kavelina Torres will include various genres and styles, including poetry, prose, short stories, and more. 

Gerri Brightwell: 

Gerri Brightwell's fourth novel, Turnback Ridge (Torrey House Press), was a finalist for the 2022 Foreword Indies Award (adult thriller & suspense). Her flash fiction "Necessary Measures" is forthcoming in Best Small Fictions 2023 (Alternating Current Press). Her other short work has appeared in many venues including Flash Fiction Online, The Best American Mystery Stories 2017, Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, Redivider, and BBC Radio 4's Opening Lines. She is currently director of the creative writing program at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Learn more about Gerri’s work at https://gerribrightwell.com/ 

Daryl Farmer:

Daryl Farmer is the author of Bicycling beyond the Divide, a nonfiction book that chronicles a bicycle ride across the U.S. West, and Where We Land a collection of short fiction. His recent work has appeared in Terrain.org, Ploughshares, and Natural Bridges among other literary journals. He is a professor at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks where he teaches creative writing and has served as director of the MFA program. He is also affiliated faculty for the Northern Studies program, and for six years served as faculty member in the University of Alaska Anchorage low-residency MFA program.

Connect with Daryl on social media @big_strong_boy (Instagram) or daryl.farmer.35 (Facebook). Learn more about Daryl’s work at https://darylfarmer.com/ 

Joseph Holt:

Joseph Holt teaches fiction writing and literary editing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He received his PhD from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi, and his writing has appeared in The Sun, The Iowa Review, and Prairie Schooner. His debut story collection is titled Golden Heart Parade.

Connect with Joseph on social media at @jsph_hlt (Twitter & Instagram) or visit https://www.holt.ink to learn more about his work.

Nicole Stellon O’Donnell:

Nicole Stellon O’Donnell is also the author of three collections of poetry, including the just released, Everything Never Comes Your Way. Her second book, You Are No Longer in Trouble, was the 2019 open submission winner of the Marie Alexander Series in Prose Poetry. Her writing has won an Alaska Literary Award, a Boochever Fellowship, and an Artist Fellowship from the Rasmuson Foundation. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, Zyzzyva, Redivider, and other literary journals. Her work as a teacher has been Recognized with a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching.

Kavelina Torres:

Writing with passion, power and humor, Yup'ik, Inupiaq, and Athabascan writer Kavelina Torres, arrive from the wild tundras of the north many moons ago. Having been released from the University of Alaska Fairbanks qasgiq, with an Indigenous Filmmaking Interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts degree they were written into the first nations, long house at the university of British Columbia, where she dreamed into fruition her Masters of Arts in Creative Writing. 

Kavelina is the professor of Indigenous Media at the University of Alaska Fairbanks with classes in pre-production, performance, production, and writing for theatre and film and television with an emphasis on a decolonized classroom using Indigenous pedagogy. 

Kavelina directed the Festival of Native Arts web streaming broadcast 2023, is an alum of the Sundance Indigenous Film program, and the Alaska Native Playwright Program. They wrote and directed the short film Yugumalleq, which was subsequently on FX and PBS nationwide, they are also produced in theater, had a short stint as a news anchor, is published in prose, and was chosen as a must read by tor.com with their short story, Technician Qamaq North - published in CAROUSELmagazine.ca/c46-torres . 

They recently directed to Tumyaraq-qaa an Inuit/circumpolar North Indigenous futurisms, 60 minute television pilot about a disparate crew uncoupling from the Earth's governments while Indigenous multitudes rest in stasis in the hold. 

Kavelina continues to write and make theater and Film.

Connect with Kavelina on social media at:

• Twitter: @SnowGigglesAK

• Instagram: SnowGiggles

• Facebook: Kavelina SnowGiggles Torres

• TikTok: @mixtrixxoftheword

This event is free and open to the public thanks to the support of our members and donors.