MONROE - Monroe Arts Center continues the 2011-2012 Writers Series at 7 p.m. Friday, April 20 with a free presentation by author Dean Bakopoulos. He is the second of three writers included in this series.
Bakopoulos will be reading a new story, accompanied by original music and surprise cover anthems. This piece is a collaboration with singer and songwriter Katie Burns.
Bakopoulos was born and raised in metro Detroit, which is the setting of his first novel, "Please Don't Come Back from the Moon (Harcourt)," a New York Times Notable Book. He lectured at Michigan, Cornell, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and other universities about the economic and environmental problems facing the post-industrial Rust Belt, and has published related essays and criticism in The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, The Progressive, The Believer, and Real Simple. His one-act plays "Phonies" and "Wayside" have been produced at Alley Stage, Mineral Point.
He is currently working on a book of nonfiction, as well as a television series based on his first novel. His second novel, "My American Unhappiness," was published in June 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. "O, The Oprah Magazine" has named it the No. 1 "Title to Pick Up Now" and has posted a reading group guide to the book online.
Bakopoulos is the winner of a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2006 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and is the former director of both the Wisconsin Book Festival and the Wisconsin Humanities Council. He received his master's of fine arts from UW-Madison and his bachelor of arts in creative writing from the University of Michigan.
Bakopoulos has taught Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa; and at the Warren Wilson College MFS Program for Writers in Asheville, N.C. He is currently teaching creative writing at Iowa's Grinnell College.
More information is available by calling (608) 325-5700 or (888) 596-1249, or online at www.monroeartscenter.com. Monroe Arts Center events are underwritten by corporate underwriter Colony Brands, Inc., and media underwriters Monroe Publishing, LLC, and Big Radio.
Bakopoulos will be reading a new story, accompanied by original music and surprise cover anthems. This piece is a collaboration with singer and songwriter Katie Burns.
Bakopoulos was born and raised in metro Detroit, which is the setting of his first novel, "Please Don't Come Back from the Moon (Harcourt)," a New York Times Notable Book. He lectured at Michigan, Cornell, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and other universities about the economic and environmental problems facing the post-industrial Rust Belt, and has published related essays and criticism in The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, The Progressive, The Believer, and Real Simple. His one-act plays "Phonies" and "Wayside" have been produced at Alley Stage, Mineral Point.
He is currently working on a book of nonfiction, as well as a television series based on his first novel. His second novel, "My American Unhappiness," was published in June 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. "O, The Oprah Magazine" has named it the No. 1 "Title to Pick Up Now" and has posted a reading group guide to the book online.
Bakopoulos is the winner of a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2006 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and is the former director of both the Wisconsin Book Festival and the Wisconsin Humanities Council. He received his master's of fine arts from UW-Madison and his bachelor of arts in creative writing from the University of Michigan.
Bakopoulos has taught Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa; and at the Warren Wilson College MFS Program for Writers in Asheville, N.C. He is currently teaching creative writing at Iowa's Grinnell College.
More information is available by calling (608) 325-5700 or (888) 596-1249, or online at www.monroeartscenter.com. Monroe Arts Center events are underwritten by corporate underwriter Colony Brands, Inc., and media underwriters Monroe Publishing, LLC, and Big Radio.