Ray Hsu is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His first poetry collection, Anthropy, won the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Award and was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. He has published poems in The Walrus, New American Writing, and Fence. Hsu won a Humanities Exposed Evjue Research Award for establishing a creative writing community and ged tutoring program in a prison. He was featured in Heart of a Poet, a documentary series on the television network Bravo.

In May 2007, Ray appeared on University of Wisconsin-Madison’s WSUM 91.7 FM to showcase writings from members of a Creative Writing Class at the Oakhill Correctional Facility in rural Wisconsin, which he facilitated with support from the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities “Humanities Exposed” program - an excerpt from this broadcast is included as part of this event.

Cris Mazza is the author of over a dozen books of fiction, most recently Waterbaby. Her other fiction titles include the critically notable Is It Sexual Harassment Yet?, and the PEN Nelson Algren Award winning How to Leave a Country. She also has a collection of personal essays, Indigenous: Growing Up Californian. A native of Southern California, Mazza grew up in San Diego county. Currently she lives 50 miles west of Chicago and is a professor in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

Series A is dedicated to showcasing experimental writing in the US and the Midwest through readings, discussion and performance. Organized by Indiana University Northwest Faculty William Allegrezza, this series brings exciting authors to the Art Center to share their work.

Recorded Tuesday, November 20, 2007 at Hyde Park Art Center.