AABS presents readings by four writers on Thursday, May 26, as part of the 2016 conference in Philadelphia.
Jocelyn Bartkevicius is the editor of The Florida Review and director of the MFA program in creative writing. She studied literary fiction and nonfiction writing at The University of Iowa, nonfiction writing at the Bennington Writing Seminars, and completed a doctoral dissertation on the essays of Virginia Woolf. Her stories and essays have appeared in anthologies and such journals as The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, The Bellingham Review, Fourth Genre, The Hudson Review, Gulf Coast, and TriQuarterly Online. She continues to publish studies of Virginia Woolf as well as book reviews and interviews. She is completing a memoir, The Emerald Room.
Birute Putrius is a Lithuanian-American author who was born in a displaced person’s camp in Germany, grew up in Chicago and now lives in California. She has published short stories and poetry in numerous literary journals and anthologies. “Lucy in the Sky” was highlighted by Publisher’s Weekly “for its charming magical realism.” Two of her stories were optioned for short films by Columbia College in Chicago. She was a finalist in the Sol Books contest and has translated poetry and non-fiction.
Laima SruoginisVince is a writer, poet, and literary translator. For over twenty years, she has been interested in the historical upheavals and transformations that took place in the Baltic States. Lenin’s Head on a Platter (Lithuanian Writers Union Publishers, 2008), grew from her diary of events during the singing revolution and reflected on the small every day details of a crumbling empire. Laima Vince graduated from Columbia University School of the Arts in 1994. She is the recipient of two Fulbright lectureships; a National Endowment for the Arts grant in Literature; a PEN Translation Fund grant.
Author and translator Astrida Stahnke began her translating career in 1974, with the English rendition of Rainis’s play Zelta zirgs (The golden steed). She is also a published poet (in both Latvian and English) and a contributor of articles to various literary journals. She has published translations of Latvian folk tales, including Kitty’s Water Mill (1996), and a comprehensive book-length analysis in the English language of the life and work of Aspazija (pseudonym of Elza Rozenbergą, 1865-1943).