Nonfiction writer and poet Kelle Groom will offer a reading as part of this year’s Mary E. Rolling Reading Series. The reading, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 12, in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium on the University Park campus.

Kelle Groom is the author of four books of poetry and two books of nonfiction. Her first memoir, “I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl,” was named New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice in 2011. The book was also named a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, Literary Journal Best Memoir, Barnes and Noble Book of the Month, Oprah O Magazine selection, and an Oxford American Editor’s pick. Her essays and poems have appeared in journals such as The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, Best American Poetry, AGNI, American Poetry Review, and Poetry, among others.

Kelle Groom’s newest book is “How to Live: A Memoir-in-Essays,” published by Tupelo Press in October 2023. Writer Nick Flynn characterizes the book this way: “Is home the place you left, or the place you are now? This is a central question in this fiercely won, wildly original, and ultimately beautiful meditation. Kelle Groom is one of our most gifted writers, and this book is her “Odyssey,” which means we will end up back where we started, only changed. Along the way we will visit strange lands, we will come face-to-face with our fears, we will find ourselves among kind strangers, and we will understand why we are alive. This is a book which wrestles with our hardest, darkest questions, and comes out on the side of gratitude.”

Groom was previously Distinguished Writer-in-Residence and Assistant Professor of Humanities at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe. Former poetry editor of The Florida Review, Groom is now a nonfiction editor for AGNI Magazine. A long-time resident of Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she directed programs at the Fine Arts Work Center, she now lives in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where she is director of communications and foundation relations for Atlantic Center for the Arts.

The Mary E. Rolling Reading Series is a program offered by Penn State’s Creative Writing Program in English. The series receives support from the College of the Liberal Arts; the Department of English; the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment; the Mary E. Rolling Lectureship in Creative Writing; and University Libraries.

See:  full list of readings in the 2023-24 series.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will offer a reading at Penn State’s University Park campus as this year’s Emily Dickinson Lecturer. The reading, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21, in Freeman Auditorium in the HUB-Robeson Center.

Trethewey served two terms as the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States (2012 to 2014). In his citation, Librarian of Congress James Billington wrote, “Her poems dig beneath the surface of history — personal or communal, from childhood or from a century ago — to explore the human struggles that we all face.”

Trethewey is the author of five collections of poetry: “Monument” (2018), which was longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award; “Thrall” (2012); “Native Guard” (2006), for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; “Bellocq’s Ophelia” (2002); and “Domestic Work” (2000), which was selected by Rita Dove as the winner of the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet and won both the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. She also is the author of the memoir “Memorial Drive” (2020) and the nonfiction book “Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast” (2010).

Other accolades for Trethewey include the 2020 Bobbitt Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the 2017 Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities category, and the 2016 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, which recognizes distinguished poetic achievement. In the citation, fellow poet and judge Marilyn Nelson stated, “Natasha Trethewey’s poems plumb personal and national history to meditate on the conundrum of American racial identities. Whether writing of her complex family torn by tragic loss, or in diverse imagined voices from the more distant past, Trethewey encourages us to reflect, learn and experience delight. The wide scope of her interests and her adept handling of form have created an opus of classics both elegant and necessary.”

Trethewey also has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012 and served as State Poet Laureate of Mississippi from 2012 to 2016. She is currently a Board of Trustees Professor of English in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University.

Trethewey’s signature project during her second term as poet laureate was a PBS NewsHour Poetry Series, “Where Poetry Lives.” In this series, Trethewey traveled with Senior Correspondent Jeffrey Brown to cities across the United States to explore societal issues such as Alzheimer’s disease, domestic abuse, the civil rights movement, and incarcerated teenagers — all through the prism of poetry, literature and Trethewey’s own personal experiences.

The Emily Dickinson Lectureship in American Poetry is made possible through the generosity of Penn State alumni George and Barbara Kelly. Additional support for the event comes from the Penn State Department of English.

We’re excited about next year’s line-up in our creative writing reading series. You can find the names and dates here!

As always, the reading series includes a mix of poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers (and some who tackle more than one genre). It includes faculty members who have recently published a book (Julia Spicher Kasdorf in March), alumni (Christine Hume in April), as well as other nationally and internationally known writers.

Natasha Trethewey’s delayed visit as Emily Dickinson Lecturer has been rescheduled for this fall. We hope you’ll join us for an exciting reading by this award-winning poet, memoirist, and former U.S. Poet Laureate. This event marks the kick-off our reading series and will be held on Thursday, September 21, 6 pm, in the HUB-Robeson Center’s Freeman Auditorium. 

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA — Award-winning poet and Poetry magazine editor Adrian Matejka will visit Penn State as the Fisher Family Writer-in-Residence during the week of March 20-24. As part of his visit, Matejka will give a free public reading at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 23, in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium on the University Park campus. Read more about the poet and event on Penn State News.

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