As part of a community enrichment and outreach program, fiction and poetry writer Sandra Cisneros will give a public reading at 7 p.m. Feb. 28 in UNLV's Moyer Student Union Ballroom. The reading is part of the Writers-in-the-Schools (WITS) program, which promotes learning through contemporary literature.
Cisneros' works include "The House on Mango Street" and "Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories." Her latest book, "Caramelo," is a multi-generational story of a Mexican-American family. She earned a master of fine arts degree from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and has won two National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) fellowships and a MacArthur Foundation fellowship. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Prior to the public reading, Cisneros will lead workshops with the Clark County high school students and teachers participating in the WITS project. In 2001, the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), which is headquartered at UNLV, launched WITS as a pilot program. The innovative program received a $40,000 grant from the NEA and $46,374 in applied research initiative funding from UNLV. The project is also funded by more than $62,000 in private patron support through the IIML, including a generous donation from Park Place Entertainment.
This year, participants in the semester-long program include 20 Clark County English teachers. The teachers each chose one "literary-minded, deserving student" to participate in the program.
"We asked the teachers to select students who could most benefit from the unique experience of working directly with such noteworthy authors," said creative writing professor Douglas Unger, director of grants for the institute. "We hope these students are inspired to go on to college."
Each student will receive up to $800 to take preparatory classes for admissions exams, a $1,000 scholarship to be awarded once he or she is admitted to a college or arts institute, and mentoring from a UNLV student in the master of fine arts in creative writing international program.
The high school teachers receive a $1,000 stipend as well as graduate tuition to enable them to study new methods for teaching contemporary literature.
Future public readings featuring WITS writers will be held:
o March 28 -- Mary Karr, a poet and non-fiction writer of "Cherry" and "Viper Rum." Her memoir, "The Liar's Club," was a national bestseller and selected as a notable book of 1995 by The New York Times and The New Yorker. She was a Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe College and is now the Jesse Truesdale Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University.
o April 11 -- E. Ethelbert Miller, a poet and author of the memoir "Fathering Words: The Making of an African American Writer." He is also the editor of many anthologies, including "In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African American Poetry." He is director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
For more information, contact the UNLV creative writing program at 895-4366.
