English Student in Fringe Festival

English/Theater student Colin Waitt performs in Bards, a Fringe Festival comedy presented August 3 through August 12 by Four Humors Theater. Bards follows spies Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare on a dangerous mission for the Queen. Four Humors Theater was founded by University of Minnesota students. All involved with the production are either past or current students. All performances are at the Southern Theatre on the West Bank.

Alumnus Wins Davis Prize

Timothy Sweet (PhD 1988) was awarded the 2006 Richard Beale Davis Prize for his article "'What Concernment Hath America in These Things!' Local and Global in Samuel Sewall's Plum Island Passage." The Davis Prize honors the best article published in Early American Literature in a publishing year. Sweet is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of English at West Virginia University.

Alumni Celebrate New Books

William Reichard (PhD 1997) reads from his latest poetry collection This Brightness (Mid-List Press) at 8 pm July 20 and 21 at Patrick's Cabaret. Reichard also joins Eireann Lorsung (MFA 2006) at BirchBark Books 7 pm July 26 for a reading. Lorsung's debut poetry collection music for landing planes by (Milkweed) was published this past spring.

SHARP Conference July 10-14

The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing, an international organization with more than a thousand members, meets on the UMTC campus July 10-14. The SHARP conference is offering a selection of public events which do not require registration, from a Thursday talk by novelist and BirchBark Books owner Louise Erdrich to a Saturday panel on "Publishing Here and Now." See details at right or the full list of open admission events.

Book Presentation & Reception

On Tuesday, July 10, Professor Thomas Augst will discuss Institutions of Reading: The Social Life of Libraries in the United States, an essay collection he co-edited which was just published by the University of Massachusetts Press. A reception and book signing will follow his talk; 3-5 pm at the central Minneapolis Public Library, 300 Nicollet Mall.