Monthly events feature local, national and international writers sharing their newest work
GARY, Ind. — The Dunes Literary Series, hosted by the Department of English at Indiana University Northwest, resumes in January 2024 and features writers from various genres and backgrounds. The monthly reading series will feature writers from Northwest Indiana, Chicago and beyond.
All events will take place via Zoom and begin at 6:30 p.m. Please learn more and register for each event below:
January 24: Translation Night, featuring Mark Tardi and Nate West
Originally from Chicago, Mark Tardi now writes and teaches at the University of Lódz. He has translated a range of poets from Polish, including books by Robert Rybicki and Katarzyna Szaulinska. An outstanding poet himself, Tardi’s own most recent books include The Circus of Trust and Airport Music.
Residing between Spain and the United States, Nate West has translated dozens of books from Spanish, Catalan and German. His most recent translations include Alejo Carpentier’s Explosion in a Cathedral and Miguel de Palol’s The Garden of Seven Twilights, a Catalan novel of refugees telling stories to one another as they harbor themselves in the wake of nuclear conflict. His translation work has been shortlisted for both the International Booker Prize and National Book Award.
February 21: Lana Spendl and Aryanil Mukherjee
Lana Spendl writes in a range of forms, including memoir, poetry and fiction. Her collection of flash fiction, We Cradled Each Other in the Air, was published by Blue Lyra Press. A recent poem, “Bare Necessities” was included in A Flame Called Indiana, an anthology of Indiana writers published by IU Press. She was born in Sarajevo and now lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
Holding a doctorate in aerospace engineering, Aryanil Mukherjee is editor of Kaurab, a journal of Bangla experimental writing. His poems and translations work between Bengali and English. His recent work includes Conversation about Withering, a collection of texted conversations about writing and the body’s breakdown with a poet, Cristina Sánchez López.
March 20: Kim Coleman Foote and Rachel Galvin
Published by Sarah Jessica Parker’s literary imprint, Zando, in 2023, Kim Coleman Foote’s Coleman Hill reflects the journeys taken by her family members in the early twentieth century from the American South to Vauxhall, New Jersey. Her work explores marginalized histories within diaspora, focusing itself on her work on a present novel, Salt Water Sister, which tells the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on three young women’s lives throughout history. Her alter ego, kimi kimiana, hosts an online music show featuring Congolese and African pop music.
Rachel Galvin’s poems and translations have appeared in journals including The Boston Review, Poetry and The New Yorker. Her most recent collection, Uterotopia, explores fertility, aging and the culture’s harsh impact on women. She teaches at the University of Chicago and is co-founder of the international translation collective, Outranspo. Her current critical work focuses on language and performance in contemporary Latinx poetries.
April 24: IU Northwest Students’ Work
The April event will feature readings of work by IU Northwest students from their creative writing courses. The event will celebrate the work of IU Northwest poets, autobiographers, journalists and fiction writers.
Details on the April 24 reading will be announced closer to the event date.
