Indiana University Northwest Dunes Literary Series announces lineup

Indiana University Northwest Dunes Literary Series announces lineup

Monthly events feature regional and national writers, sharing their newest work

The Dunes Literary Series, hosted by the Department of English, at Indiana University Northwest resumes with writers from a range of genres and backgrounds. The monthly reading series will feature writers from Northwest Indiana, Chicago and beyond.

October 4: Max Lawton

Translator extraordinaire, Max Lawton has translated and placed eight books by Russian novelist and short fiction writer Vladimir Sorokin, including Tellruia and Their Four Hearts, as well as the forthcoming Blue LardRed Pyramid and Other Stories, and Dispatches from the District Committee.  

Lawton is currently writing his doctoral dissertation on phenomenology and the 20th Century novel at Columbia University, where he also teaches Russian.

Register now: Max Lawton Reading

October 25: Kass Fleisher Memorial Reading

Kass Fleisher, a writer who passed away in 2023, will be remembered with a reading and discussion on her life. Those participating include Laura Mullen, Michael Joyce, Mary Ann Cain, Carla Harryman, Cole Swenson, Steve Tomasula, Andrew Levy and Caitlin Marie Alvarez

Fleisher was the author of five books: the novel Dead Woman Hollow; Talking Out of School: Memoir of an Educated Woman; the documentary nonfiction work, The Bear River Massacre and the Making of History; and two prose works that trouble the divide between fiction and memoir, The Adventurous and Accidental Species: A Reproduction

Register now: Kass Fleisher Memorial Reading

November 15: Peggy Shinner and Jesse Rifkin

Peggy Shinner is the author of You Feel So Mortal/Essays on the Body, which was long-listed for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. 

Her essays have appeared in The Paris ReviewBOMBLitHubColorado ReviewSalonThe Rumpus, and others. Her next collection, Wound Weapon Warning Virtue, is forthcoming and an essay from that collection, “The Rest is History,” won Fourth Genre’s 2022 Steinberg Memorial Essay Contest. 

Jesse Rifkin’s This Must Be the Place: Music, Community, and Vanished Spacesin New York City explores the history of back-block music clubs that have disappeared amidst the city’s gentrification. As an historian, he also operates Walk on the Wild Side Tours in New York.

Register now: Peggy Shinner and Jesse Rifkin reading

Additional Readings: 2024 Season

  • January 24: Featured translators: Mark Tardi and Nate West
  • February 21: Aryanil Mukherjee and Guest
  • March 20: Rachel Galvin and Guest
  • April 24: IU Northwest Creative Writing Student Night

All events will take place via Zoom and begin at 6:30 p.m. Please register for each event. Registration for events taking place in 2024 is forthcoming.