Author Shruti Swamy and Poet Kelly Hoffer to Give Glasgow Endowment Reading at W&L The public reading will take place May 1 at 7 p.m. in Northen Auditorium inside Leyburn Library.
Washington and Lee University presents a public reading with author Shruti Swamy and award-winning poet Kelly Hoffer on May 1 at 7 p.m. in the Northen Auditorium in Leyburn Library. The event is sponsored by the Glasgow Endowment.
Swamy will read from her debut novel, “The Archer,” and Hoffer will read from her first book of poems, “Undershore.” The lecture will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the writers asking about each other’s work and then opening the floor to audience questions. The event is free and open to the public.
“We thought it would be fun to team Shruti and Kelly up for a reading and celebration of their work,” said Beth Staples, assistant professor of English and editor of Shenandoah literary magazine. “It’s a unique reading, combining fiction and poetry, but the Spring Term feels like a chance to do new things — and they are both so incredibly talented.”
Swamy and Hoffer will also visit Staples’s Literary Book Publishing class during their time on campus. Swamy’s The Archer will be the focus of the class, and students will come up with their own book proposals over the term, working on the description, book cover and marketing plan. Swamy will meet with the class to discuss her publishing process, and students will have virtual conversations with Swamy’s agent, editor, publisher and book designer. Hoffer will also visit Staples’s class with her publisher from Lightscatter Press to talk about the process of publishing poetry.
Swamy is the author of the story collection “A House is a Body,” which was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was longlisted for the Story Prize. “The Archer” has been longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her work has also been published by the Paris Review and McSweeney’s and anthologized in the O. Henry Prize Stories.
Hoffer’s first book of poems, “Undershore,” was selected by Diana Khoi Nguyen for the 2021 Lightscatter Press Prize, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gulf Coast, American Chordata, Mississippi Review, Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Prelude, The Bennington Review and Second Factory from ugly duckling presse. Her book manuscript, “Fire Series,” was a finalist for the 2021 National Poetry Series and the Georgia Poetry Prize. Hoffer received her MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently finishing a doctorate in literatures in English at Cornell University. She will join the faculty of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan in the fall of 2023.
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