Poet Named 2013 Lurie Distinguished Visiting Author-In-Residence

Kim Addonizio (Lin Tan photo)

Contact: Alan Soldofsky, SJSU Creative Writing Director, 408-924-4432

SAN JOSE, CA – Award-winning poet Kim Addonizio has been appointed San Jose State University’s Connie L. Lurie Distinguished Visiting Author-in-Residence for the 2013 spring semester. Annually, the Lurie Author-in-Residence is selected by the Department of English and Comparative Literature in the College of Humanities and the Arts.

Addonozio is teaching the ENGL 240: Graduate Poetry Workshop on Tuesdays at SJSU.  She will give a public reading from her poetry and fiction on 7:30 p.m. March 19 in the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, room 225/229.  Admission is free and open to the public.

Addonizio’s most recent book of poetry is Lucifer at the Starlite (W. W. Norton, 2009).  Her previous collections include What Is This Thing Called Love (W. W. Norton, 2004) and Tell Me (BOA Editions, 2000), which was a finalist for the National Book Award.  She also has published two books about writing poetry and the creative process: Poet’s Companion (W. W. Norton, 1997), co-authored with Dorianne Laux, a standard text used in many colleges and universities; and her most recent book of writing prompts and instructional advice, Ordinary Genius (W. W. Norton, 2009).

About the craft of writing poetry, Addonizio emphasizes cultivating a sense of personal power and finding your own way of doing edgy work in both open and closed forms to expand the range of your voice.

She has published two novels, My Dreams Out in the Street (Simon & Schuster, 2007) and Little Beauties (Simon & Schuster, 2005); and a collection of short stories, In the Box Called Pleasure (Fiction Collective, 1999).  In addition, she has co-edited Dorothy Parker’s Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos (Grand Central Publishing, 2002).  She has been the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, The Commonwealth Club Poetry Medal and the John Ciardi Lifetime Achievement Award.

Nonstop Beautiful Ladies

Addonizio grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C., and moved to San Francisco in the late 1970s, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s from San Francisco State. She has taught in the Goddard College MFA program, and also teaches private classes from her home in Oakland. She fronts a rock and blues band, Nonstop Beautiful Ladies, for which she plays blues harmonica, sings, and recites poems.

The Lurie Distinguished Visiting Author-in-Residence in Creative Writing was established in 1999, offering students the opportunity to study with nationally and internationally known authors. Previous Lurie Authors include some of the most distinguished poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers writing in English today.

Distinguished Writers

Notable among them are science fiction writer and poet Ursula K. Le Guin; Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Carolyn Kizer; former California Poet Laureate Al Young; international best-selling nonfiction writer and journalist Simon Winchester; acclaimed novelist, essayist and poet Ishmael Reed; Booker-Prize winning Scottish novelist James Kelman; acclaimed short-story writer Z Z Packer; award-winning poet and internationally acclaimed scholar Sandra M. Gilbert; best-selling adventure/outdoor writer Tim Cahill; internationally renown novelist and short-story writer Fernando Alarcón; and award-winning memoirist and investigative journalist Julia Scheeres.

Connie L. Lurie is a generous benefactor who has donated to SJSU on numerous occasions, including a major endowment to the Connie L. Lurie School of Education. Lurie graduated from SJSU in 1964 with a bachelor’s degree in both elementary education and psychology after which she taught as an elementary school teacher on the Monterey Peninsula for six years.