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The most impressive continuous reading in America

BU’s Annual Faculty Reading is coming up, and Leslie Epstein isn’t sure what to say about it. His dilemma hasn’t changed since 1998, when he claimed to have exhausted his vocabulary praising the all-star Creative Writing Program he directs. Asked if he still feels, as he stated in 1997, that "it’s obviously the most impressive continuous reading in Boston," he simply suggests a rephrasing: "Try ‘America.’"

Epstein’s loss for words is itself a telling comment, of course: this year’s roster of readers speaks for itself. It includes Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, and Geoffrey Hill, who has been called the best living English poet by Donald Hall, John Hollander, and Harold Bloom, among others. Although Hill, a UNI professor and codirector of BU’s Editorial Institute, does not teach creative writing, "a lot of our students take his classes," Epstein says. "In a sense he’s part of the program."

The reading will also feature a pair of guest faculty members who have long-standing ties to the program: poet David Ferry and fiction writer Susanna Kaysen, author of the bestselling memoir Girl, Interrupted. And this year, for the first time, the program will include a reading from a work of drama, courtesy of Kate Snodgrass, producing director of the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre.

The nature of her genre, Snodgrass says, denies her the option of reading from her most recent work. "It’s difficult for me, because all dialogue, by definition, has at least two people in it," she says. "So I have to find a passage from one of my plays that I can read by myself. I’ll probably have to read from a play that was produced last year."

Nevertheless, she says, "I’m thrilled to be invited, especially with that group."

Epstein himself, whose novel Ice Fire Water: A Leib Goldkorn Cocktail was a critical hit last year, will round out the reading with a few pages from some recent short fiction. As emcee, he promises eight-second introductions to complement the eight-minute readings.

"It’s a Whitman Sampler," he says of the event, "a little box of candies. If audience members want more, they’ll have to apply to the program."

The Annual Faculty Reading of the Creative Writing Program will take place at 8 p.m. on Monday, November 6, in the School of Management Auditorium, 595 Commonwealth Ave. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 353-2510.

4 December 2000
Boston University
Office of University Relations