On Monday, September 25, Kirstin Valdez Quade will read at the University of Tennessee. The event is part of UT’s Writers in the Library reading series. Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of Night at the Fiestas, winner of the John Leonard Prize, the Sue Kaufman Prize, and a “5 Under 35” award from the National Book Foundation. “Set mainly in tight-knit Catholic, Mexican-American communities in New Mexico,” writes the Dallas Morning News, Night at the Fiestas “enthralls with tales of people striving to better their lives while enduring the aftermath of past mistakes.” The New York Times calls three of Quade’s stories from Night at the Fiestas “legitimate masterpieces” and goes on to say, “This is a variety of beauty too rare in contemporary literature.”

Kirstin Valdez Quade’s work has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Southern Review, and Guernica, and it has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. Currently she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Princeton University.

The reading begins at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library. The event is free and open to the public; all are encouraged to attend. A brown bag Q&A, open to University of Tennessee students, will be held at noon in 1210 McClung Tower.

The mission of Writers in the Library is to “showcase the work of novelists, poets, and other literary craftsmen.” Some of the best voices in contemporary literature are invited to read. The series is sponsored by the UT Libraries and the Creative Writing Program in association with the John C. Hodges Better English Fund.

For more information, contact Erin Elizabeth Smith, Jack E. Reese Writer-in-Residence at the UT Libraries, at esmith83@utk.edu or visit http://library.utk.edu/writers for a complete schedule of Writers in the Library readings for the 2017-2018 academic year.

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