[poster for the first event on September 25]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, September 3, 2008

CONTACT: Lisa Haley Thomson, Benjamin Marvin
Phone: 518-454-5102 E-mail: marvinb@strose.edu Web: www.strose.edu/news

"FREQUENCY NORTH" WRITERS SERIES AT SAINT ROSE BACK FOR FOURTH SEASON

"Frequency North," the visiting writers reading series at The College of Saint Rose, returns for its fourth season with another aggressively eclectic mix of award-winning poets, authors, essayists, a MacArthur Award "genius" and one satirical cartoonist.

The 2008-09 series kicks off Thursday, September 25, with David Rees, creator of the Internet phenom "Get Your War On," and playwright, writer and sometime performer Rachel Shukert. Saint Rose writing faculty get into the act in October for a one-time event, with readings by authors Daniel Nester, William Patrick, Kenneth Krauss, Hollis Seamon, Gary McLouth, Rone Shavers and Barbara Louise Ungar. Award-winning author, poet and Troy native Alice Fulton follows in November. March will bring Taylor Mali, a former teacher who uses his slam poetry to turn people to the teaching profession. The series concludes in April with an evening of poetry read by Marilyn Nelson, former Poet Laureate of Connecticut, and Deborah Ager.

"This year's lineup is special because all of these authors have been on my dream list for years," said Daniel Nester, assistant professor of English and creator of the Frequency North series. "They're funny, riveting, thought-provoking, entertaining, bombastic, spell-binding and great reminders of the importance of literature in our lives. They will all rock."

The complete Frequency North schedule follows. All readings are free and open to the public. For more information, visit the series website at www.FrequencyNorth.com.

--Thursday, September 25, 2008, 7:30 p.m.: David Rees and Rachel Shukert
Events and Athletics Center, Second Floor, 420 Western Ave., Albany
(Note: this program recommended for ages 18 and older only)

--Thursday, October 16, 2008, 7:30 p.m.: Saint Rose Faculty Reading
Auditorium, Saint Joseph Hall, 985 Madison Ave., Albany

--Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 7:30 p.m.: Alice Fulton
Events and Athletics Center, Second Floor, 420 Western Ave., Albany

--Thursday, March 26, 2009, 7:30 p.m.: Taylor Mali
Events and Athletics Center, Second Floor, 420 Western Ave., Albany

--Thursday, April 23, 2009, 7:30 p.m.: Marilyn Nelson and Deborah Ager
Events and Athletics Center, Second Floor, 420 Western Ave., Albany

David Rees was working a crummy magazine job when Operation: Enduring Freedom inspired him to create his cartoon "Get Your War On." The satire about the war on terrorism became an Internet phenomenon. "Get Your War On" now appears in every issue of Rolling Stone, and an animated version is featured on www.236.com. Get Your War On was published in book form in 2003 (Soft Skull Press), followed by Get Your War On II in 2004 (Riverhead Books). This fall, Soft Skull Press publishes Get Your War On: The Definitive Account of George Bush's War on Terror 2001-2008. Sales of the first two Get Your War On books have raised almost $100,000 for land mine removal in western Afghanistan. Rees also is the author of My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable (Riverhead Books, 2003), Adventures of Confessions of Saint Augustine Bear and My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable (Riverhead, 2004), which appeared as a regular feature in The Guardian of London. Rees lives in Beacon, Orange County.

Rachel Shukert is the author of Have You No Shame?: And Other Regrettable Stories (Random House/Villard), a memoir collection that chronicles, among other high jinks, the writer-performer-provocateur's experience growing up in Omaha, Neb., in that city's only Jewish elementary school. Her most recent theatre project, "Wasp Cove," is a "Dallas"/"Falcon Crest"-type soap opera, which she co-created and co-wrote with Julie Klausner. In it, Shukert plays the actress Pamela Ann Windchime, who plays the character of Donna Kettering. Her writing has appeared in Nerve, Babble, Salon, Heeb Magazine and McSweeney's, and anthologized in 2033: The Future of Misbehavior. Shukert lives in New York City with her husband and her cat.

A native of Troy, Alice Fulton's first fiction collection, The Nightingales of Troy: Connected Stories, was published this year by W.W. Norton. Her most recent book of poems is Cascade Experiment: Selected Poems. Her 2001 poetry collection, Felt (W.W. Norton), was awarded the 2002 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress. Her other books include Sensual Math (W.W. Norton); Powers Of Congress (Sarabande Books reissue 2001); Palladium (University of Illinois), winner of the 1985 National Poetry Series and the 1987 Society of Midland Authors Award; and Dance Script With Electric Ballerina (University of Illinois reissue 1996), winner of The 1982 Associated Writing Programs Award. Fulton has received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Award and fellowships from the The Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, The Michigan Society of Fellows, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has been included in five editions of The Best American Poetry series and in the 10th Anniversary edition, The Best of the Best American Poetry, 1988-1997. Fulton is currently the Ann S. Bowers Professor of English at Cornell University and lives in Ithaca.

Taylor Mali is a former teacher who now makes his living as a professional poet. Through poetry, passion and perseverance, he wants to turn 1,000 people to the teaching profession. He is considered the most successful poetry slam strategist of all time, having led six of his eight national poetry slam teams to the finals stage and winning the championship itself a record four times before anyone had even tied him at three. A native of New York City, Mali was one of the original poets to appear on the HBO original series "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry." Mali is a vocal advocate of teachers, having performed and lectured for education professionals all over the world.

A former Poet Laureate of Connecticut, Marilyn Nelson's most recent books are Carver: A Life in Poems, Fortune's Bones, and A Wreath for Emmett Till, a book-length narrative poem about the 14-year-old black youth lynched 57 years ago in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The book made national headlines last year when two teachers were fired from a Los Angeles charter school because they planned to have students read a poem about Emmett Till. Nelson's other books include The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems (1997), which was a finalist for the 1998 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the 1997 National Book Award, and the PEN Winship Award; Magnificat (1994); The Homeplace (1990), which won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the 1991 National Book Award; Mama's Promises (1985); and For the Body (1978); all published by Louisiana State University Press. She also has published two collections of verse for children: The Cat Walked through the Casserole and Other Poems for Children (with Pamela Espeland, 1984) and Halfdan Rasmussen's Hundreds of Hens and Other Poems for Children (1982), which she translated from Danish with Pamela Espeland. Nelson's honors include two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts., a Guggenheim fellowship, three National Book Award Finalist medals, the Poets' Prize, the Boston Globe/Hornbook Award, a Newbery Honor medal, two Coretta Scott King Honor medals, the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, the Lion and Unicorn Award for Excellence in Poetry for Young Adults, and the American Scandinavian Foundation Translation Award. Nelson is an emeritus professor at the University of Connecticut and founder/director of Soul Mountain Retreat.

Deborah Ager's first book, Midnight Voices, a finalist for BOA Editions' A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize (judged by Edward Hirsch) will be published in March 2009 by WordTech. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2006, Best of the Tigertail Anthologies, Writing Poems (2007), The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel, The Bloomsbury Review, The Georgia Review, New Letters, Quarterly West, among other places. She has been awarded fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Jenny McKean Moore workshop, and was a Tennessee Williams scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Since 2004, she has edited and published 32 Poems magazine, which publishes 64 poems per year. Poems from 32 Poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Best New Poets 2005 (edited by George Garrett), Best New Poets 2006 (edited by Eric Pankey) and online at Verse Daily and Poetry Daily. Ager works as a search engine optimization expert, owns her own search engine marketing company, and lives in Virginia with her husband and child.

Labels: Albany, Creative Nonfiction, Don Johnson, Frequency North, Poems, Shameless self-promotion