DRC Writers’ Conference Faculty Reading, featuring Lenz, Meno, Shah, Thompson – Fri. June 25, 7pm CST on Zoom and livestream

DAVID R. COLLINS VIRTUAL WRITERS’ CONFERENCE 2021 FACULTY READING, featuring LYZ LENZ, JOE MENO, TARIQ SHAH, and GALE MARIE THOMPSON

What: Collins Writers’ Conference Faculty Reading
When: Friday, June 25, 2021 at 7pm CST
Where: Online – available on Zoom for Conference participants, and via livestream to MWC’s YouTube channel and Facebook Live page.
Cost: Free & open to the public

MWC and the SPECTRA Reading Series are thrilled to welcome the award-winning faculty of the 2021 David R. Collins Writers’ Conference to a virtual reading to celebrate the conference and their work. the event will feature readings from Lyz Lenz, Joe Meno, Tariq Shah, and Gale Marie Thompson. The event is free & open to the public, but spaces are still available for the Conference.

The event will be available on Zoom for Conference participants, and via livestream to MWC’s YouTube channel and Facebook Live page. Contact sarah.elgatian@mwcqc.org with questions or to RSVP.

For more information about the DRC Writers’ Conference, visit: http://www.mwcqc.org/…/david-r-collins-writers-conference/

**DRC Conference Faculty Bios**


Lyz Lenz’s writing has appeared in the Huffington Post, The Washington Post, the Columbia Journalism Review, The New York Times, Pacific Standard, and others. Her book God Land was published in 2019, through Indiana University Press. Her second book Belabored, was published in 2020 by Bold Type Books. Lyz’s essay “All the Angry Women” was also included in the anthology Not that Bad edited by Roxane Gay. Lyz received her MFA in creative writing from Lesley University. She lives in Iowa with her two kids.


Joe Meno is a fiction writer and journalist who lives in Chicago. He is the winner of the Nelson Algren Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Great Lakes Book Award, and was a finalist for the Story Prize. The bestselling author of seven novels and two short story collections including Marvel and a Wonder, Hairstyles of the Damned, and The Boy Detective Fails, he is a professor in the English and Creative Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. His nonfiction book, Between Everything and Nothing, follows the lives of two asylum seekers confronting the perils of the U.S. immigration system, was published in 2020 and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and one of Kirkus’ Best Books of the Year.


Tariq Shah is the author of Whiteout Conditions (Two Dollar Radio, 2020). His chapbook, ‘heart assist device,’ was a finalist for the 2019 no, dear/small anchor press chapbook series. A Best of the Net award nominee, his work appears in or is forthcoming from DIAGRAM, jubilat, Heavy Feather Review, Shirley Magazine, No, Dear Magazine, Anomaly, and other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, where he currently teaches.


Gale Marie Thompson is the author of Helen or My Hunger (YesYes Books, 2020), Soldier On (Tupelo Press, 2015), and two chapbooks. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Tin House Online, The Adroit Journal, BOAAT, and Crazyhorse, among others. She has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and has worked on the editorial teams of jubilat, Crazyhorse, Fairy Tale Review, Georgia Review, and Slope Editions. She is the founding editor of Jellyfish Poetry and co-host of the arts advice podcast Now That We’re Friends. Gale lives in the mountains of North Georgia, where she directs the Creative Writing program at Young Harris College.

THE DAVID R. COLLINS WRITERS’ CONFERENCE IS MADE POSSIBLE THANKS TO THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF OUR SPONSORS: MODERN WOODMEN OF AMERICA, FOUNDING SPONSOR; THE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY; THE ILLINOIS ARTS COUNCIL AGENCY; ILLINOIS HUMANITIES; THE ST. AMBROSE UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT; THE FIGGE ART MUSEUM; AND ROZZ-TOX.