Final Thursday Reading Series

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FINAL THURSDAY READING SERIES

Thursday, October 30, 2008
Hearst Center for the Arts
Cedar Falls, Iowa

Featured Reader:
Amy Nolan

SEE BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS

Amy Nolan

The Hearst Center is located at 304 W. Seerley Blvd. in Cedar Falls. Enjoy the art on your way back to the reading. Open mic signup begins at 7:00 p.m. Bring your best five minutes of poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction. Singer-songwriters are also welcome, and now we have access to the Hearst's grand piano. The open mic begins at 7:15, and Amy Nolan takes the stage at 8:00. There will be a short question and answer period as time allows.

Amy Nolan has been an assistant professor of English at Wartburg College since 2006. Her writing has appeared recently in the Anderbo Literary Journal and Verdad Magazine. She is currently writing a memoir called Whirpool that is based on her experience growing up in Michigan and which culminates in the trial of a fellow employee who shot and killed their employer. See below for a sample of Nolan's writing.

Hearst Center for the Arts

The James & Meryl Hearst Center for the Arts is located at 304 West Seerley Blvd. in Cedar Falls. Stop by early to check out the current exhibitions.

excerpt from "Civil Defense"
by Amy Nolan

The river is the place for which I long the most. It is the place of childhood, swimming naked, living in, being, and wonder. Digging fingers into the rich, black river dirt of my grandmother’s vegetable garden. Pine sap in my hair. Using all the muscles in my body to push against the current as I walk upstream, and the joyous release as I finally give in to its swiftness and let it pull me down toward the eddying whirlpool downstream. My immersion was complete: I fell in on a deep-snow December day when I was a year old, and floated along the swift current before my father pulled me out. From then on I longed to be inside the water. To feel my body churn, my bones spread and stretch, curling and twisting into impossible positions I couldn’t achieve on land. I would gaze up at the sky from under water, out and up into the sun, which shone and spread over the water’s surface, penetrating but distant, creating the cold comfort of being under the surface. Under water was my refuge.

The Spring 2009 Lineup
Final Thursday Reading Series