For release: September 14, 2012
For press information, contact Gabrielle Maxey, 901-678-2843

Mary Leader

The River City Writers Series at the University of Memphis will open its fall season by welcoming poet Mary Leader for two events Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 25 and 26. Leader will read from her work Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. in the University Center River Room (Room 300). A book signing will follow.

She will hold an interview with students Sept. 26 at 10:30 a.m. in Patterson Hall, Room 456.

The events are free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in the Zach Curlin garage adjacent to the University Center.

A former assistant attorney general of Oklahoma, Leader launched a new career as a poet and teacher. She taught at the University of Memphis and is now a professor at Purdue University.

Leader’s first book, Red Signature, won the National Poetry Series. Her second collection, The Penultimate Suitor, won the Iowa Poetry Prize. Her newest edition is Beyond the Fire.

Her work has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and Garrison Keillor’s Writer's Almanac.

The River City Writers Series is sponsored by Student Event Allocation, the Department of English, the Creative Writing Club, Sigma Tau Delta and The Hohenberg Foundation. RCWS is one of the longest-running reading series in the nation, serving the U of M and the Mid-South since 1977.

For more information, email creativewriting@memphis.edu or holladay@memphis.edu,or call 901-678-2651.