~from Ciara Baird

Andrew Altschul, the director of the Creative Writing Reading Series at CSU, started the night with a thanks to sponsors who have made the reading series possible.

After that, Harrison Fletcher took the microphone introducing the first reader of the evening, Cherie Nelson who is working on her M.A. in Literature. She read from her thesis which is a collection of personal essays titled “To Trace the Sky.” Her work focuses on memories from childhood, the stars (especially constellations) and a tattoo of Orion that her brother gave her on her shoulder. She interweaves thoughts and memories in search of her own meaning concerning the tattoo and what it represents to her.

Dan Beachy-Quick introduced the second reader of the night, poet Kristin Macintyre. She read from her collection of poems titled “Lush: The Cradle.” There are six different “planes of consciousness” throughout the collection. She read from four of these: dream, memory, the space of the addictive and possibility. Macintyre works with the relationship between the “I” and “thou” while creating beautiful scenes of nature, death, darkness and rebirth.

Make sure to join us for the next reading in the series: March 7, 7:30 pm, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, UCA. Gillian Cummings is the author of The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter, selected by John Yau as the winner of the 2018 Colorado Prize for Poetry. Adam Fagin is the author of the Mountain West Poetry Series selection Furthest Ecology (Center for Literary Publishing 2019).

Andrew Altschul introduced the final reader of the evening, Megan Clark, who read from the first chapter of the novel she is currently working on. The main character, Coraline Connors, tells an amusing coming of age story; she is raised by her Catholic grandmother because her mother is a heroine addict. The chapter Clark reads from hilariously depicts Coraline losing her virginity to her girlfriend in an out of order bathroom at her Catholic school.

The Creative Writing Reading Series is made possible by the support of the CSU Department of English, the College of Liberal Arts, the donor-sponsor of the Crow-Tremblay Alumni Reading Series, and other generous donors. Visit advancing.colostate.edu/CWRS for more on our donors and information about how to donate.