Wednesday, February 17
Session 1 - 1:00 pm PST 
Register here 

Michael Torres
Shin Yu Pai
Steve Erickson

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE
Department of Creative Writing

44th Annual Writers Week Festival 2021

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Writers Week director
Writers Week is the longest-running, free literary event in California and features the most renowned authors of our day alongside those at the start of promising careers. writersweek.ucr.edu

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke 
Director, Writers Week
Distinguished Professor

Tom Lutz 
Publisher, Los Angeles Review of Books 
UCR Creative Writing Department Chair 
Distinguished Professor 

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February 13 and 16-19, 2021
ONLINE. Free and open to the public. 
Captioned & ASL translated.
February 20 Post-festival ticketed celebration with our Lifetime Achievement Award partner LA Review of Books. Learn more

Download the Interactive Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees Poster here

Download the Interactive 44th Writers Week Poster here 
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Rita Dove, Joy Harjo and Juan Felipe Herrera

2021 LA Review of Books (LARB) – UCR Department of Creative Writing 
Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees, US Poet Laureates

Mike Davis – D. Charles Whitney Reader 
Karen Tei Yamashita – Stephen Minot Lecture

44th UCR Writers Week Featured Writers 
Millicent Borges Accardi • Kazim Ali • Francisco Aragón • Joseph Cassara • Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle • Camille T. Dungy • Carolyn Dunn • Steve Erickson • Kelli Jo Ford • Reyna Grande • Stephanie Elizondo Griest • Nalo Hopkinson • LeAnne Howe • John Jennings • Stephen Graham Jones • Laila Lalami • Brandy Nālani McDougall • Shin Yu Pai • Craig Santos Perez • Tommy Pico • Elizabeth Powell • Kamala Puligandla • Alison C. Rollins • Jane Smiley • Michael Torres • Melissa Valentine • Allison Benis White
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SCHEDULE 
Wednesday, Feb 17
Session 1 – 1:00 pm PST 

Michael Torres 
An Incomplete List of Names: Poems (Beacon Press, 2020)

Shin Yu Pai 
Ensõ (Entre Rios Books, 2020)

Steve Erickson 
Conversations with Steve Erickson (University Press of Mississippi, 2021) 
Steve Erickson, UC Riverside 

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BIOGRAPHIES 

Michael Torres 
Michael Torres is a VONA distinguished alum and CantoMundo fellow. A winner of the Loft Mentor Series, he received an Individual Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, and was awarded a Jerome Foundation Research and Travel Grant to visit the pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico where his father grew up. Fellowships and awards include National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Loft Literary Center for the Mirrors & Windows Program, 2020 McKnight Writing Fellowship, and Artist-in-Residence at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. His debut, An Incomplete List of Names, (poetry, Beacon Press, 2020) was selected by Raquel Salas Rivera for the National Poetry Series and listed in NPR’s Best Books of 2020. His writing is featured in Best New Poets 2020, The New Yorker, POETRY, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, The Sun, Water~Stone Review, Southern Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, Poetry Northwest, Copper Nickel, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The McNeese Review, MIRAMAR, Green Mountains Review, Forklift, Ohio, Hot Metal Bridge, The Boiler Journal, Paper Darts, River Teeth, The Acentos Review, Okey-Panky, Sycamore Review, SALT, Huizache, online as The Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week, on The Slowdown with Tracy K. Smith, and NPR’s Code Switch podcast. Michael was born and brought up in Pomona, CA, where he spent his adolescence as a graffiti artist. Currently, he teaches in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.

Shin Yu Pai 
Shin Yu Pai, 2014 Stranger Genius Award nominee, is the author of ten books of poetry, including Ensō (Entre Rios Books, 2020), Aux Arcs (La Alameda), Adamantine (White Pine), Sightings (1913 Press), and Equivalence (La Alameda). Her work has appeared in publications throughout the U.S., Japan, China, Taiwan, The United Kingdom, and Canada. Poems have been commissioned by the Dallas Museum of Art twice and her work is also featured in the Poetry-in-Motion Program sponsored by DART. She served as the fourth Poet Laureate of The City of Redmond, Washington. Her personal essays have appeared in CityArts, Tricycle, Seattle's Child, and YES! Magazine. Her poetry films have been commissioned by the Poetry Visible Project and screened at Zebra Poetry Festival and Northwest Film Forum. Shin Yu’s visual work has been exhibited work at The McKinney Avenue Contemporary, The Paterson Museum, The American Jazz Museum, The Three Arts Club of Chicago, Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago, and the International Print Center. She is a member of the Mother Load collective. She has served as a poet-in-residence for the Seattle Art Museum and produced literary programming for the Crow Collection of Asian Art, the Women’s Museum of Dallas, and the Rubin Museum of Art. She is former assistant curator for the Wittliff Collections. She curates the Lyric World poetry series for Town Hall Seattle. She lives and works in Bitter Lake, Seattle. For more info, visit www.shinyupai.com. 

Steve Erickson 
Steve Erickson is the author of ten novels: Days Between Stations, Rubicon Beach, Tours of the Black Clock, Arc d'X, Amnesiascope, The Sea Came in at Midnight, Our Ecstatic Days, Zeroville, These Dreams of You and Shadowbahn. He also has written two books about American politics and popular culture, Leap Year and American Nomad. Numerous editions have been published in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Greek, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. Over the years he has written for Esquire, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Conjunctions, Salon, the L.A. Weekly, The New York Times Magazine and other publications and journals, and his work has been widely anthologized. For twelve years he was editor and co-founder of the national literary journal Black Clock. Currently he is the film/television critic for Los Angeles magazine and a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Riverside. He has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature, a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and twice has been nominated for the National Magazine Award for criticism and commentary.

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The 44th Writers Week 2021 is made possible by support from Ken Crocker, Inland Empire Magazine, Thea Temple / Jack and Jacob Myers Literary Fund, Riverside Latino Network, African Student Programs, Middle Eastern Student Center, UCR Department of English, UCR Department of Ethnic Studies, UCR Department of Music, UCR Department of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production, Center for Ideas and Society, California Center for Native Nations, Dr. Michael Alexander, Associate Professor and Maimonides Chair of Jewish Studies, Dr. Melissa Wilcox, Professor and Holstein Endowed Chair, Pr. Alex Espinoza, Associate Professor, Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair of Creative Writing and English, Distinguished Professor, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Dr. Clifford Trafzer, Distinguished Professor of History and Rupert and Jeanette Henry Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs, UCR ARTS, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Dean’s Office, our generous sponsors through #UCRGivingTues donors, Native American Student Programs Office (NASP), Joshua Gonzales, Director, the Ratcliffe Family Creative Writing Endowment Fund and Los Angeles Review of Books.

#UCRGivingTues* donors include: Mark O. Bailie, Melissa A. Bartholomew, Katherine Benouar, Kathleen DeAtley, Clyde D. Derrick III, Terri L. Dunlap, Pr. Alex Espinoza, Diana Fontaine, Katherine K. Fugate, Jeffrey J. Girod, Kimberly V. Gomez-Fraser, Pr. Allison Hedge Coke, Travis B. Hedge Coke, Dr. Laila Lalami, Malinn C. Loeung, Michael Lundell, Jennifer Merrett, Heather M. Morales, LaSharon A. McLean Perez, Cati Porter, Rachel L. Pulido, Assistant Vice Chancellor Emily M. Rankin and Eveleen D. Samayoa.

Book purchases
A hyperlink is now available for all attendees to purchase books from our own campus B & N bookstore here. Cellar Door Books is our recommended local independent store. Be sure to stop by their page.

Information: writersweek@ucr.edu 

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Click here to read UC Riverside's statement of support for Black Lives Matter and Native Land Recognitions. 

View the 44th Writers Week Events Calendar Directory here