The U of A Program in Creative Writing and Translation is proud to announce its 2016 Distinguished Reader, renowned poet and author Claudia Rankine. Rankine will give a free reading of her poetry at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27, in the Fayetteville Public Library.

The reading is open to the public. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and no advance tickets are required. 

Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry. Her most recent volume, Citizen: An American Lyric, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, where it gained the distinction of being the first book ever to be nominated in both the poetry and criticism categories. Other awards for the collection include the NAACP Award, the PEN Open Book Award and the PEN Literary Award. It was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award.

Rankine recently won a 2016 MacArthur "genius grant." Among her many other honors are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets and the Lannan Foundation. In addition to her poetry, Rankine has authored plays, edited anthologies, and collaborated in video productions. 

She teaches at the University of Southern California, where she is the Aerol Arnold Chair in the Department of English.

Rankine's reading is one of many events slated for Fayetteville's True Lit literary festival. The festival is organized by numerous local partners, including the Fayetteville Public Library, the Program in Creative Writing and Translation and Fayetteville Public Schools. 

The Program in Creative Writing and Translation Distinguished Readers Series is made possible by the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English, the Walton Family Foundation, and the James E. and Ellen Wadley Roper Professorship in Creative Writing. Past readers have included W.S. Merwin, Dorianne Laux, Joyce Carol Oates, Shahrnush Parsipur and Zadie Smith.