Writers read from their poetry and fiction

The UO’s Creative Writing Program will present two author readings during fall term. The readings are cosponsored by the OHC’s Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities.

On Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 4:30 p.m. via Zoom, poet Chad Abushanab will read from and discuss his debut collection The Last Visit, winner of the 2018 Donald Justice Poetry Prize, finalist for the Poetry by the Sea Book Award, and finalist for the Writers’ League of Texas Book Award. 

Abushanab carefully and compassionately explores a family broken by alcoholism and abuse. These poems trace the trajectory of an adolescent living with a violent father struggling with addiction, and recount both the abused child’s perspective and his attempts to reckon with his past as he reaches adulthood, chronicling his own struggles with substance abuse and the reverberations of trauma in his life. 

Amid the violence and hurt, Abushanab’s verse renders moments of compassion—even the least sympathetic figures are shown to be grappling with their flaws, and the narrator struggles to find compassion and move beyond the memories and habits that haunt him. These well-crafted poems explore how the past shapes us and how difficult it can be to leave behind. 

Fiction writer Sameer Pandya will read from and discuss his novel Members Only on Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 4:30 p.m. via Zoom.

Members Only explores what membership and belonging mean, as the protagonist, Raj Bhatt, navigates the complicated space between black and white America. He is often unsure of where he belongs. Having moved to America from Bombay as a child, he knew few Indian kids. Now middle-aged, he lives mostly happily in California, with a job at a university. Still, his white wife seems to fit in better than he does at times, especially at their tennis club, a place he’s cautiously come to love.

But it’s there that, in one week, his life unravels. It begins at a meeting for potential new members: Raj thrills to find an African American couple on the list; he dreams of a more diverse club. But in an effort to connect, he makes a racist joke. The committee turns on him, no matter the years of prejudice he’s put up with. And worse still, he soon finds his job is in jeopardy after a group of students report him as a reverse racist, thanks to his alleged “anti-Western bias.”

For information and registration go to crwr.uoregon.edu.