May 19th: Major Jackson and Lynne Sharon Schwarz

Major Jackson's books of poems are Hoops (2006, Norton) and Leaving Saturn (2002, University of Georgia Press). He has published poems and essays in American Poetry Review, Callaloo, The New Yorker, Poetry, and other literary magazines. Hoops was selected as a finalist for a NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry, and Leaving Saturn was awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. His third volume of poetry Holding Company is forthcoming from W.W. Norton. He is a recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He took a B.A. from Temple University and an M.F.A. from the University of Oregon. Mr. Jackson has worked as the curator of literary arts at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia and the Mountain Writers' Center in Portland, and has taught at Columbia University, Xavier University of Louisiana, New York University, and University of Massachusetts - Lowell as the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence. He lives in Burlington, Vermont, where he is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor at University of Vermont. He serves as the Poetry Editor of the Harvard Review.


Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s most recent book is the memoir, Not Now, Voyager, just out from Counterpoint. Among her 21 books are the novels The Writing on the Wall; In the Family Way, Disturbances in the Field; Leaving Brooklyn (nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award) and Rough Strife (nominated for a National Book Award). She is also the author of the poetry collection, In Solitary; the memoir, Ruined by Reading, and, most recently, she edited The Emergence of Memory: Conversations with W.G. Sebald, a collection of essays and interviews. Her work has been reprinted in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Essays, and many other anthologies, and her reviews have appeared in leading magazines and newspapers. She teaches at the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Spring 2009 Ordinary Evening Reading Series Schedule

For Spring 2009, the Ordinary Evening Reading Series is thrilled to present an array of extra-ordinary writers reading on an ordinary Tuesday night at 7PM in the Mermaid Room at the Anchor Bar & Restaurant (272 College Street, New Haven).

January 20: Mark Oppenheimer and Barry McCrea
February 17: Susan Holahan and Lewis Robinson
March 24: Douglas Bauer and Lisa Starr
April 21: Ann Hood and Randall Peffer
May 19: Major Jackson and Lynne Sharon Schwarz

We welcome drinkers and teetotallers alike for an evening of readings by writers of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. We hope you can join us for what the New Haven Independent called "one of those unofficial civic ventures that make New Haven such a vibrant place."