Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.— Mississippi State’s Department of English is welcoming two authors and educators for a fiction and poetry reading Wednesday [Oct. 26] at the university.

Free to all, the presentation by Kendall Dunkelberg of Columbus and Alexander Weinstein of Ann Arbor, Michigan, begins at 7:30 p.m. in Colvard Student Union’s third-floor Fowlkes Auditorium. A question-and-answer session and book signing will follow.

A poet reared in Osage, Iowa, Dunkelberg is a professor of English and creative writing program director who also directs the Eudora Welty Writers Symposium at Mississippi University for Women in Columbus. He holds a bachelor’s in English/creative writing from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, as well as master’s and doctoral degrees in comparative literature from the University of Texas at Austin.

Among other works, Dunkelberg is the author of “Landscapes and Architectures” (Florida Literary Foundation Press, 2001) and “Time Capsules” (Texas Review Press, 2009). To be published later this year by Texas Review Press, his third book of poems, “Barrier Island Suite,” is inspired by the life and works of iconic Gulf Coast artist Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-65). For more, visit https://kendalldunkelberg.com.

Weinstein, an award-winning fiction writer who originally hails from Brooklyn, New York, teaches creative writing at both Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan, and the University of Michigan. In addition to leading fiction workshops in the United States and Europe, Weinstein serves as director of Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, a Massachusetts-based summer writing retreat. He holds a bachelor's in English/creative writing from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, as well as a master's in English/world literature and Master of Fine Arts in English/creative writing from Indiana University.

Weinstein’s new short story collection, “Children of the New World,” (Picador, 2016) already is receiving high praise, including recognition from The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post.

Introducing readers to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games and frighteningly intuitive robots, the stories “grapple with our unease in this modern world and how our ever-growing dependence on new technologies has changed the shape of our society.” For more, see http://www.alexanderweinsteinfiction.com.

Additional information about Dunkelberg and Weinstein’s visit may be obtained from Michael Kardos, MSU associate professor of English and creative writing co-director, at 662-325-3644 and MKardos@english.msstate.edu.

For more on MSU’s Department of English, visit www.english.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.