The U of A Program in Creative Writing and Translation in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is pleased to welcome Oscar Hokeah, author of Calling for a Blanket Dance to Fayetteville next week. Hokeah will read from the novel at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14, at Pearl's Books. A Q&A with Hokeah and Toni Jensen, associate professor of fiction in the Department of English, and a book signing will follow.

This free public event is made possible by the Program in Creative Writing and Translation, the Department of English, Pearl's Books, and Belle Point Press. Masks are encouraged.

Oscar Hokeah is a citizen of Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma from his mother's side and has Mexican heritage through his father. He holds an M.A. in English with a concentration in Native American literature from the University of Oklahoma, as well as a B.F.A. in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts, with a minor in Indigenous liberal studies. He is a recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship Award through IAIA and is also a winner of the Native Writer Award through the Taos Summer Writers Conference. His short stories have been published in South Dakota Review, American Short Fiction, Yellow Medicine Review, Surreal South, and Red Ink Magazine. He works with Indian Child Welfare in Tahlequah.

About the U of A Program in Creative Writing and Translation: For 50 years, the U of A Program in Creative Writing and Translation has served as a preeminent training ground for some of the nation's best writers. Established in 1966, ours is one of the oldest M.F.A. programs in the nation and one of the most innovative, offering degree tracks in poetry, fiction and literary translation. Each semester, our Walton Reading Series brings in established authors who offer a public reading and hold one-on-one conferences with students. Past visitors have included Colum McCann, A. E. Stallings, Khaled Mattawa, Franz Wright, Marian Schwartz and William Gay. In addition, our Distinguished Readers Series lures true literary luminaries to campus for a public reading and private MFA events: W. S. Merwin, Shahrnush Parsipur, Robert Hass, Joyce Carol Oates, Zadie Smith and Claudia Rankine, among others.