"Animals Strike Curious Poses" author reads. Books available for sale.

Elena Passarello teaches courses on writing and reading literary nonfiction. Her own essays on pop culture, music, performing arts, and the natural world have recently appeared in Oxford American, Creative Nonfiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Iowa Review as well as the anthologies After Montaigne (UGA Press 2015), I'll Tell You Mine, (University of Chicago Press 2015) and Cat is Art Spelled Wrong (Coffeehouse/ Walker Art Center, 2015).

Her first book, Let Me Clear My Throat (Sarabande, 2012) won the Independent Publishers' gold medal for nonfiction and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Sarabande will publish her second essay collection, Animals Strike Curious Poses, in 2017. She serves on the board of the NonfictionNow conference, is nonfiction editor of Iron Horse Review, and co-edits the "In Place" nonfiction series at West Virginia University Press.

Passarello is a recipient of fellowships from OSU’s Center for the Humanities, Literary Arts, the MacDowell Colony, the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts, and the University of Iowa Museum of Art. In 2015, she received the Whiting Award in nonfiction.

Books will be available for sale. Open mic follows reading.

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