Johnston, Eimers present readings Feb. 6
Jan. 23, 2001
KALAMAZOO -- Two members of the Western Michigan University creative writing faculty will present readings from their work Tuesday, Feb. 6, on the WMU campus.
Dr. Arnold Johnston, author, playwright and chairman of the WMU Department of English, and awarding-winning poet Nancy Eimers will read from their work at 8:30 p.m. in Room 3512 of Knauss Hall. A reception will follow in the lobby of Knauss Hall, and books will be available for sale by Athena Bookstore. The reading is sponsored by the Department of English and is free and open to the public.
Johnston's plays, including some written in collaboration with his wife, Deborah Ann Percy, have won awards and been produced and published across the country. His books include "The Witching Voice: A Play About Robert Burns," "Of Earth and Darkness: The Novels of William Golding," and a collection of poetry, "What the Earth Taught Us." Johnston and Percy's translations of two long one-act plays, "Night of the Passions" and " Sons of Cain" by Romanian playwright Hristache Popescu were published in Bucharest by Editura HP, as was an English-Romanian edition of his and Percy's full-length play "Rasputin in New York." "Rasputin" was also produced to critical acclaim in 1999 by the Whole Art Theatre at Kalamazoo Valley Community College's Lake Auditorium and by Love Creek Productions at New York City's Theatre Row Studios. On his 1997 compact disc recording "Jacques Brel: I'm Here!," Johnston performs his own translations of songs by the noted Belgian singer-songwriter. A recipient in 1986 of the Kalamazoo Community Medal of Arts, Johnston is a member of the Dramatists Guild and resident playwright with both the Off-Off Broadway theatre company AAI Productions and Kalamazoo's Actors and Playwrights Initiative.
Eimers is the author of two books of poetry, "Destroying Angel" and "No Moon." The winner of the 1999 Whiting Literary Award, she was also a 1987 Nation Discovery winner and recipient of a 1996 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in Paris Review, The Nation, Antioch Review, TriQuarterly, Poetry Northwest and Black Warrior Review. In addition to teaching at WMU, she also is on the faculty of the Master of Fine Arts Program at Vermont College.
For more information, persons should contact Julie Stotz at (616) 373-9212.
Media contact: Marie Lee, 616 387-8400, marie.lee@wmich.edu