Event Host: Department of English
Poet, editor and memoirist Blas Falconer is the author of three poetry collections, The Foundling Wheel, A Question of Gravity and Light, and The Perfect Hour, and is a co-editor of two essay collections, The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity and Mentorand Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets. He has received numerous awards and his poems have appeared in various literary journals. He is the poetry editor for The Los Angeles Review and teaches in the low-residency MFA at Murray State University. Falconer received his MFA from the University of Maryland and PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He lives in Los Angeles.
Poet, editor and prose writer Kazim Ali is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection, Inquisition, and a hybrid memoir, Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies. His previous books encompass several volumes of poetry, including Sky Ward, winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry and The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award. Ali's poems, both lyric and musical, explore the intersection of faith and daily life. His novels include the recently published The Secret Room: A String Quartet and among his books of essays is Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice. Ali was born in the United Kingdom to Muslim parents of Indian, Iranian and Egyptian descent. He received a BA and MA from the University of Albany-SUNY, and an MFA from New York University. He is an associate professor of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Oberlin College.
