Bonnie Jo Campbell to Visit Campus on March 19 and 20

Kalamazoo native Bonnie Jo Campbell is the last speaker in this year's Visiting Writers series. She’ll visit Kalamazoo Valley on Tuesday, March 19 and Wednesday, March 20 and students across campus will read Campbell’s book Once Upon a River. All Visiting Writer events are open to the public and take place in the Student Commons Theater, Room 4240, at the Texas Township Campus. Craft talks begin at 10 a.m. and readings are held at 2:15 p.m.

Campbell is the author of the National Bestselling novel Once Upon a River (Norton, 2011), a river odyssey with an unforgettable16-year-old heroine, which the New York Times Book Review calls “an excellent American parable about the consequences of our favorite ideal, freedom.” Her first novel, Q Road, delves into the lives of a rural community where development pressures are bringing unwelcome change in the character of the land.

Campbell’s critically-acclaimed short fiction collection American Salvage (Wayne State University Press, 2009) was finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critic’s Circle Award. The collection consists of 14 lush and rowdy stories of folks who are struggling to make sense of the twenty-first century.

Campbell’s collection Women and Other Animals, won the AWP prize for short fiction, and details the lives of extraordinary females in rural and small town Michigan. Her story “The Tattoo” is included in the anthology Shadow Snow, a tribute to Ray Bradbury. Her story “The Smallest Man in the World” was awarded a Pushcart Prize and her story “The Inventor, 1972” was awarded the 2009 Eudora Welty Prize from Southern Review. She is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow. Her newest book of stories, Mothers, Tell Your Daughters, was published by Norton in the fall of 2015.

Kalamazoo Valley’s Visiting Writer series is organized by instructor Julie Stotz-Ghosh and offers students the opportunity to talk with professional writers and listen to their work. For more information, contact Julie Stotz-Ghosh at jstotzghosh@kvcc.edu.