DMACC celebration of the literary arts set for April 2

Des Moines Area Community College’s 16th annual Celebration of the Literary Arts will be held April 2-4 with classroom visits to all six DMACC campuses by area writers and literary instructors.

George Barlow, a poet, and Paula Smith, a poet and short fiction writer, both teach at Grinnell College, will read from their works from noon to 1 p.m. April 2 at the DMACC Newton Campus.

Barlow has published two volumes of poetry, "Gabriel" from Broadside Press and "Gumbo" from Doubleday, and is co-editor of "About Time III: An Anthology of California Prison Writing." In addition, he has published poems in many journals. He has also had work accepted by www.theafricanamerican.com, an online literary magazine and Iowa City's 2006 Poetry in Public Project.

Barlow earned an M.A. in American studies and an M.F.A. in poetry, both from the University of Iowa. He is the recipient of a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Fellowship, and a Graduate Opportunity Fellowship from the University of Iowa. He is now a member of the Board of Directors of Humanities Iowa.

Smith is a writer whose poems and short fiction appear in literary journals like Flyway, Red Cedar Review, North American Review and the Bellevue Literary Review. Translation rights to her novel, “The Painter’s Muse,” were sold in 2008 to several foreign publishers.

Smith has been awarded residencies and fellowships from the Communication Arts Institute, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Ragdale Foundation. She was the winner of the 2006 Evolution Poetry Prize sponsored by the Society for the Student of Evolution and a finalist in other contests. Smith earned degrees from Swarthmore College, Cornell University.

DMACC’s Celebration of the Literary Arts is an annual literary festival that brings national and Iowa-writers to DMACC’s six campuses. The celebration includes readings, master’s workshops, and classroom visits.

For more information about the Newton event, contact Lauren Rice, 641-791-1746 or lrrice@dmacc.edu. For more information about the Celebration of Literary Arts, contact Marc Dickinson, madickinson@dmacc.edu.