Reading & Conversation featuring Laynie Browne and Carla Harryman,  each reading from recent works, followed by a discussion of A Forest on Many Stems: Essays on the Poet’s Novel (Nightboat Books, 2021), and of poet’s novels and cross-genre literary works.

Laynie Browne’s recent books include a collection of poems, Translation of the Lilies Back into Lists (Wave Books, 2022); a novel, Periodic Companions (Tinderbox Editions, 2018); and a book of short fiction, The Book of Moments (Presses Universitaires de Rouen, 2018). Her poetry has been translated into French, Spanish, Chinese, and Catalan. She edited the anthology A Forest on Many Stems: Essays on The Poet’s Novel and co-edited the anthology I'll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing By Women (Les Figues Press, 2012). Her honors include a Pew Fellowship, the National Poetry Series Award, and the Contemporary Poetry Series Award. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.

Carla Harryman (Detroit & Ypsilanti, MI)  is the author of twenty-four books of poetry, prose, and performance writings as well as a number of essays on performance and feminist poetics, including “Obituary of the Many: On The Obituary by Gail Scott,” published in A Forest of Many Stems: Essays on the Poet’s Novel. She has published two novels, The Words After Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories and Jean-Paul Sartre (O Books) and Gardener of Stars (Atelos).  Recent publications include A Voice to Perform: One Opera/Two Plays (SplitLevel Texts, 2020), a two-volume French and English edition of poetry and performance writing, Sue in Berlin and Sue á Berlin (Presses Universitaires de Rouen, 2018), and the poet’s theater play Good Morning (in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2022). Her contributions to literature and performance were the focus of Poet’s and Critics 2018, a two-day symposium held at Universités Paris Est Marnes-la-Vallée, Paris 7&8 and L’Institut Universitaire de France. She is a recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Art Grants for Artists in poetry and the Ronald C. Collins Distinguished Faculty Award in Creative Activity at Eastern Michigan University, where she teaches in the Department of English. Her poem-dialogue series Cloud Cantata is forthcoming from Pamenar Press in London.

Reading & Conversation: Laynie Browne and Carla Harryman