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L.A. Writers Highlight Speaker Series

The series starts on Feb. 15 and runs through April 20. It is sponsored by the College’s English and Comparative Literary Studies Department and is underwritten by the Remsen Bird funds.

The schedule is as follows:

Feb. 22
4:30-5:30 p.m., Morrison Lounge, Johnson Student Center
Nina Revoyr

Revoyr is this year’s Occidental Visiting Remsen Bird Author, participating in various classes focused on Los Angeles. She is the author of “Southland,” named one of the “Best Books of 2003” by the Los Angeles Times. Her first novel, “The Necessary Hunger,” was described by Time magazine as "the kind of irresistible read you start on the subway at 6 p.m. … and keep plowing through until you've turned the last page at 3 a.m. ... Revoyr has the imagination to depict racial issues in which whites are not the reference point.”

Feb. 26
Noon-1 p.m., Morrison Lounge, Johnson Student Center
Carolyn See

Novelist and memoirist See’s works include “There Will Never Be Another You” and “Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America.” She is a book reviewer for the Washington Post and serves on the board of PEN Center USA West. See’s awards include the prestigious Robert Kirsch Body of Work Award (1993) and a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction. This event is being co-sponsored by Occidental’s Community Literacy Center.

March 1
7-8:30 p.m., Morrison Lounge, Johnson Student Center
Michelle Huneven and Michael Jaime-Becerra

Huneven received an M.F.A. at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and her first published story won a G.E. Younger Writers Award and republication in Harper’s magazine. Her first novel, “Round Rock,” was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award. She teaches creative writing at UCLA. Jaime-Becerra is a graduate of the master of fine arts in fiction program at UC Irvine. In 2004, his debut collection of inter-related short stories, “Every Night Is Ladies’ Night,” received considerable critical acclaim and was listed among the year’s best by the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle. He teaches in the creative writing department at UC Riverside.

March 26
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Bioscience 113
Kamau Daaood

Daaood, a Los Angeles native, is a performance poet and community arts activist. He is the author of two chapbooks, “Ascension” and “Liberator of the Spirit,” and a widely acclaimed spoken word CD, “Leimert Park,” for which he received a PEN Oakland Award. Daaood also is the subject of an award-winning documentary film, “Life is a Saxophone” and a collection of poems, “The Language of Saxophones.” A former member of the Watts Writer’s Workshop, Daaood honed his skill as a “word musician” for the Pan African People’s Arkestra under the direction of pianist and composer Horace Tapscott. He has received a Cave Canem Workshop/Retreat Fellowship, a Durfee Artist Fellowship and a California Arts Council Fellowship.

April 20
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Bioscience 113
Luis Alfaro

Alfaro is a critically acclaimed writer/performer whose work includes poetry, plays, short stories, performance and journalism. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and an NEA/TCG Residency Grant. In 2002, he twice was awarded the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, for “Electricidad” and “Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.”

For more information on the writers, click here.