May 18, 2012, Friday - Mentor Series: Tracy K. Smith at The Loft

Time: 7:00pm

Location: The Loft, (Performance Hall) 1011 Washington Avenue South

Mentor Series: Tracy K. Smith 
 
The Loft Mentor Series in Poetry and Creative Prose presents poetry mentor Tracy K. Smith reading from her work along with program participants Liza Allen (nonfiction) and Jane Loechler (poetry).

Tracy K. Smith is the author of three poetry collections: Duende, winner of the James Laughlin Award and the Essence Literary Award, The Body’s Question, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and Life On Mars. She is the recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and a Whiting Writers’ Award, and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. Smith is currently a protégé in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, and a member of the Creative Writing Faculty at Princeton University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Liza Allen (nonfiction) has done extensive research on the Holocaust and is exploring themes of transmission of trauma in her writing. She holds a BA in English (with an emphasis in creative writing) and an MS in Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication from the University of Minnesota. She was a recipient of the Academy of American Poets College Prize. For the past twelve years, she has been working as a technical writer and consultant in the computer and health and wellness fields. She has three children and lives in Saint Paul.

Jane Loechler (poetry) is currently working as a consultant on a software design project, turning data into stories that will help shape affordable housing policy. As a visual artist her work has centered around how things work and how people fit together. She has only recently made the move toward writing poetry based on similar themes.  She received her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design with a focus on sculpture and aesthetic critical theory. She lives in downtown Saint Paul.