Add Gary Gildner to your list of accomplished people to visit your campus during your college careers.
Sure, this accomplished writer and MSU alumnus doesn’t draw attention like Bill Clinton or Elie Wiesel, but his work speaks of itself.
The MSU grad, who’s work includes “The Second Bridge,” “The Warsaw Sparks” and the 1996 Iowa Poetry Prize-winning “The Bunker in the Parsley Fields,” will make a stop Friday. The reading will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the main library’s room W449.
Gildner is one of five featured writers in the fall Michigan Writers Series hosted by the MSU Library. The event has been held by the library’s Special Collections department since 1992.
Gildner has also taken home the National Magazine Award for Fiction, a Pushcart Prize and a Robert Frost Fellowship.
MSU Library’s head of Special Collections Peter Berg is excited about this addition to the Michigan Writer’s Series.
“We are hopeful for a rather large crowd,” he said. “His reputation will draw the audience to the reading.”
Getting this writer to make a stop at MSU was no easy task. Gildner, who resides on his ranch in the Clearwater Mountains of Idaho, is currently touring the country presenting his poetry. He visited Alma College’s campus Tuesday for a reading at the Jones Auditorium.
“We have been trying to get him for some time now.”
For Gildner, 65, travel goes hand-in-hand with his writing. He has traveled to the Czech Republic and Poland as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer. Poland has even been the focal point of his work “The Warsaw Sparks,” a memoir of coaching baseball under a communist regime. He has made a career out of visiting college campuses across the country. Pittsburgh State University, Luther College and Lake Superior State University are just a few of the nearly 300 colleges Gildner has been invited to present his readings.
Other writers featured in the fall 2001 Michigan Writers Series include MSU English professor Diane Wakoski, poet and essayist Josie Kearns on Nov. 2, and Central Michigan University English professor Dr. Robert L. Root on Dec. 7.
