Woiwode to read at VCSU on Friday

North Dakota poet laureate Larry Woiwode will read from his award-winning writings at 7 p.m. on Friday in Froemke Auditorium at Valley City State University.

Woiwode’s work has appeared in literary magazines such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly.

His 1975 novel “Beyond the Bedroom Wall” sold more than one million copies and was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Woiwode has published 15 books. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Esquire, Harpers, GQ, The New York Times, Paris Review, Partisan Review and others, along with more than 20 stories in The New Yorker.

His work has been translated into a dozen languages and is included in four volumes of “Best American Short Stories.”

He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Lannan Fellow, a U.S. State Department Traveling Artist (the Canadian provinces, Norway, Sweden, Lithuania), and in 1995 he was awarded the Medal of Merit from the American Academy of Arts & Letters for “distinction in the art of the short story.”

He is a recipient of the William Faulkner Foundation Award, the John Dos Passos Prize, The Aka Khan Prize, The Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award, and in 1995, by a joint resolution of the North Dakota Senate and House and confirmation by the governor, he was named poet laureate of North Dakota.

He published two books in 2011, “Words Made Fresh” and his first juvenile book, “The Invention of Lefse,” and a book of essays, “Words for Readers and Writers,” will appear in 2013.

Woiwode has a connection to VCSU. Both of his parents are alumni of the university, and his complete works are archived in the Allen Memorial Library.

The public is invited to this free event.

This literary event is brought to VCSU by the Lectures and Readers Committee. For more information, contact Rob Walsh or Greg Brister at 701-845-7443.

Tags: diversions, literature