By Daily Press staff
Santa Monica College’s “Literary Series” will start Sept. 30 as part of the celebration surrounding the school’s completion of a $23.6 million library expansion and modernization project.
Free and open to the public, the series will open with author Marcos McPeek Villatoro. In October, SMC faculty writers will take over. And the works of Zora Neale Hurston will be featured in November. The series is sponsored by the SMC Associates, a private group that funds speakers and special programs on campus, and the SMC English Department. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis, except for the Nov. 14 Hurston event, when reservations are required.
“I’m very excited about this literary series, not only because of the caliber of writers we are featuring, but because it celebrates... the diversity found in modern American literature,” said Judy Neveau, SMC community relations director and producer of the series.
Here’s the lineup: ■Thursday, Sept. 30 at 11:15 a.m. Villatoro will lecture and read from his book “Minos” — the latest Romilia Chacon mystery. The author and poet holds the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair in Writing at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles and is a regular commentator for National Public Radio’s “Day to Day.” The event will be staged in the SMC Concert Hall, 1900 Pico Blvd. ■Friday, Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. “An Evening with SMC Faculty Writers,” featuring poetry, prose and dialogue with distinguished SMC faculty authors, including Wil Doucet, Carol Davis, Mario Padilla and others. The event will be held in the SMC Concert Hall, 1900 Pico Blvd. ■Friday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. “An Evening of Zora Neale Hurston: A Writer Beyond Her Time.” The event features historical background by author and USC professor Carla Kaplan, who edited “Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters”, and dramatic readings of Hurston’s works by Denise Woods, a California Institute of the Arts theater professor who recorded Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” The event will be held in the SMC Library, 1900 Pico Blvd.
SMC’s Library opened Aug. 26 for the fall semester, and the grand opening ceremony is set for Oct. 14 at 11:15 a.m.
For information about the SMC Literary Series, call (310) 434-4003.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 20, 2003. Read the original PDF.