Fiction writer Darcey Steinke and four seniors in the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University will read from their work on Friday, March 27 at Labyrinth Books. The reading is part of the Emerging Writers Reading Series, which showcases senior thesis students of the Program in Creative Writing with established writers as special guests. Featuring student writers Tom Markham, Shannon McGue, Jane Pritchard, and David White, the reading begins at 6:00 p.m. at the bookstore at 122 Nassau Street and is free and open to the public.
Photo by Jenny Gorman
Steinke is the author of five novels, Up Through the Water (1989), Suicide Blonde (1992), Jesus Saves (1997), Milk (2005), and, most recently, Sister Golden Hair (2014). She has also written the spiritual memoir Easter Everywhere (2007). Up Through the Water, Jesus Saves, and Easter Everywhere were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year. She co-edited the collection of essays Joyful Noise: The New Testament Revisited (1997) with Rick Moody. Steinke has written extensively on art and literature and has contributed to Spin Magazine, covering the David Koresh Branch Davidian story and contributing a 1997 cover story on Kurt Cobain. In addition, she has a web project called blindspot, which was part of the Whitney Biennial in 2000.
Steinke’s prose has been said by The New Yorker to, “repeatedly hint at the divine in tangible things.” According to a Washington Post book review of Steinke’s novel, Milk, “Steinke writes some beautifully mystical descriptions of sexual encounters, and the conjunction of sex and the spirit, bodies and souls, is fascinating.”
Her books have been translated into ten languages and her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Boston Review, Vogue, Spin Magazine, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Guardian. She has been both a Henry Hoyns and a Stegner Fellow, and she was also a Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. Steinke is currently teaching a fiction writing workshop in Princeton’s Program in Creative Writing. She is a graduate of Goucher College and the University of Virginia, where she received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing.
The four seniors, who are pursuing a certificate in creative writing in addition to their major areas of study, will read from their senior thesis projects. Each is currently working on a novel, screenplay, translations, or a collection of poems or short stories as part of a creative thesis for their certificate with a member of the Creative Writing faculty including Jeffrey Eugenides, Chang-rae Lee, Paul Muldoon, Joyce Carol Oates, James Richardson, Tracy K. Smith, Susan Wheeler, and Edmund White.
The series, hosted by the seniors in the program, is intended to present a public showcase for the work of their peers and to invite professional writers by whom the students have been inspired.
