The Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series, presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University, continues the 2022-23 season with a reading by Whiting Award-winning poet A. Van Jordan and bestselling novelist Emma Cline. The reading begins at 7:30 p.m. on March 28 in the James Stewart Film Theater at 185 Nassau Street on the Princeton University campus. The event is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. The Film Theater is an accessible venue. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week prior to the event date.
A. Van Jordan. Photo courtesy A. Van Jordan
A. Van Jordan is the author of four poetry collections, most recently The Cineaste (2013), which poet Terrance Hayes described as “dazzling” and the Washington Independent Review of Books hailed as “brilliant.” His other books include Quantum Lyrics (2007), M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A (2005), which was listed as one the Best Books of 2005 by The London Times, and Rise (2001), which won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Jordan is the recipient of a Whiting Award, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, and a Lannan Literary Award in Poetry. His additional honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a United States Artists Fellowship. His next book, When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again, will be published by W.W. Norton in June 2023. Jordan has taught at several institutions and currently serves as the Robert Hayden Collegiate Professor of English Language & Literature at the University of Michigan.
Emma Cline. Photo credit: Nathan Bajar
Emma Cline is the author of The Girls (2016), the story collection Daddy (2021), and The Guest, a novel forthcoming in May 2023. An international bestseller, The Girls won the Shirley Jackson Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award, the First Novel Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The Boston Globe called The Girls “an astonishing work of imagination—remarkably atmospheric, preternaturally intelligent, and brutally feminist.” The winner of the Plimpton Prize and an O. Henry Award, Cline was also named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, Granta, and The Best American Short Stories. In 2019, Cline was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Story Prize, and, in 2021, she won an O. Henry Prize for “White Noise.”
The Lewis Center’s Program in Creative Writing annually presents the Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series, which provides an opportunity for students, as well as all in the greater Princeton region, to hear and meet the best contemporary writers. The series is organized by Lecturer in Creative Writing and award-winning poet Michael Dickman. All readings are at 7:30 p.m. in the James Stewart Film Theater and are free and open to the public.
The 2022-23 series will conclude with students reading from their recent work in April and seniors reading from their independent work in May.
All visitors are expected to be either fully vaccinated, have recently received and be prepared to show proof of a negative COVID test (via PCR within 72 hours or via rapid antigen within 8 hours of the scheduled visit), or agree to wear a face covering when indoors and around others.
Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about this event, the Program in Creative Writing, and the more than 100 other performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, and lectures presented each year by the Lewis Center, most of them free.
