Literary legend Chuck Kinder will be at UNLV on Sept. 27 to read from his widely acclaimed new novel Honeymooners.
The reading, which is free and open to the public, is set to begin at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History. The reading is being sponsored by UNLV's master of fine arts in creative writing program.
It took Kinder, who is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh, almost 25 years to complete this book. It chronicles the lives of two writers who share a dream of fame and freedom in the Bay Area of the 1970s and is loosely based on Kinder's friendship with fellow author Raymond Carver.
Kinder began writing the novel in his early 30s when he lived in San Francisco. He continued working on it on and off after his arrival at the University of Pittsburgh in 1980. His struggle to complete his masterpiece was the inspiration for actor Michael Douglas' character in the movie Wonder Boys, a movie adapted from the book of the same name by Kinder's former student, Michael Chabon. Kinder also has authored the novels Snakehunter and The Silver Ghost.
UNLV's master of fine arts program also is a cosponsor of a reading by poet Mark Doty, which will be held on Sept. 28 at the Jewel Box Theatre in the Clark County Public Library on 1401 E. Flamingo Road. The reading is set to begin at 7:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
Doty is the author of six books of poems, including his forthcoming book Source; Atlantis, which received the Ambassador Book Award, the Bingham Poetry Prize, and a Lambda Literary Award; My Alexandria, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and Britain's T.S. Eliot Prize; Sweet Machine; Bethlehem in Broad Daylight; and Turtle, Swan.
Doty has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Guggenheim, Ingram Merrill, Rockefeller, and Whiting foundations. He teaches creative writing at the University of Houston.
Additional sponsors of Doty's reading include the Nevada Humanities Committee and the Clark County Public Library, which is part of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District.
For additional information about the upcoming events, call the UNLV English department at 895-4366.
