Karen Kovacik to Present Reading of Her Works at Wooster

Former co-editor of Artful Dodge literary journal visits campus on April 18

Karen Kovacik

WOOSTER, Ohio - Karen Kovacik, award-winning poet and short story writer as well as associate professor of English, director of creative writing, and adjunct associate professor of women's studies at Indiana University School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, will present a reading of her works on Friday, April 18, at The College of Wooster. The event, which is free and open to the public, begins at 4 p.m. in Room 244 of Kauke Hall (400 E. University St.). Refreshments will be available following the reading.

Kovacik, who has a connection to Wooster as a former co-editor for The College of Wooster-based literary journal Artful Dodge, translates poetry and literature from both Polish and Spanish, and is the author of several collections of poetry. Her publications include Return of the Prodigal (1991), Nixon and I (1998), and Beyond the Velvet Curtain (1999), which was awarded the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize by Kent State University Press. Her poem "Requiem for the Buddhas of Bamiyan" received the 2002 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, and she also received a Fulbright research grant to Poland in 2004-05 for the translation of Polish women poets.

Kovacik's most recent book, Metropolis Burning (2005), was awarded the Best Book of Indiana Award in 2006. "The beloved and ruined cities of Karen Kovacik's Metropolis Burning are the substance of an individual and human history of the last century," wrote Maggie Anderson of Kent State University in a recent review. "Out of her generous heart, her strict understanding of the crimp of labor on the free imagination, and her rare sense of humor, she has made a gorgeous, multi-layered music I want to listen to again and again and again."

Kovacik has been honored for her prose as well as poetry. In 2001, her story "Going to Lvov" won the Chelsea Award for Short Fiction, and her story "Madrigals for a Bauhaus Baby" received the 2002 Glimmer Train Very Short Story Award. Her critical work (often on intersections of poetry, women, and the working class) has appeared in Women's Studies Quarterly and elsewhere.

The reading is sponsored by the Department of English at Wooster through the Stephen Donaldson Fund, as well as Artful Dodge magazine. Additional information about Kovacik's reading is available by phone (330-263-2575) or e-mail (kclyde@wooster.edu).