URI Writers Collective sponsors reading Feb. 11

KINGSTON, R.I. -- January 22, 1999 -- The University of Rhode Island Writers Collective and the URI Foundation will host a poetry reading featuring authors Janet Kaplan and Michele F. Cooper on Thursday, Feb. 11. Free and open to the public, the reading will take place from 45 p.m., in the Hoffmann Common Room of Independence Hall on the Kingston Campus. Refreshments and conversation will follow the readings.

Janet Kaplan of Brooklyn, N.Y., attended Lehman College and Columbia University and earned her MFA degree in poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Her poems have appeared in MS., the Paris Review, the Massachusetts Review, American Literary Review, the, Greensboro Review, among others. A chapbook, The Solid Ground, was published in 1996 by the Premier Poets chapbook series. Kaplan,s first full-length collection of poetry The Groundnote, won the 1997 Alice James Books New England and New York Competition and was published in 1998 by Alice James. Kaplan is the recipient of fellowships and residencies at Yaddo, the Vermont Studio Center, the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She was the winner of the BRIO award (an artist,s grant) in poetry from the Bronx Council on the Arts and has taught creative writing at SUNY in Old Westbury and at Hofstra University.

Michele F. Cooper of Portsmouth, R.I., is the author of two books, numerous essays and articles, and poetry which has appeared in journals such as Nedge, Black Buzzard Review, Faultline, Atom Minde, Sea Change, Women on Women, the Frontier, Arachne, and World Order. She is the founding editor of The Newport Review and Crane,s Nest: Wisdom of the Elderwoman, and a chapbook series, Premier Poets. She holds a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Rhode Island, and is listed in a number of Who,s Who books. She and Kaplan met at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts.

The URI Writer,s Collective is under the direction of English Professor Don Kunz of N. Kingstown, Assistant Professor Stephen Barber of Providence, and Tina Letcher of Kingston a URI English Dept. graduate and author. Most readings will feature URI faculty, staff, alumni, or graduate students, but occasionally, other authors will be showcased. University alumni, faculty, staff, or graduate students interested in reading their work may contact Kunz at 874-4337 or by e-mail at dkunz@uriacc.uri.edu.

For More Information: Jhodi Redlich, 401-874-2116