The department of English, the English Students Association, the College of Liberal Arts and the Office of the President will come together to sponsor the first Long Beach Celebrates: West Coast Writers event this week.
West Coast Writers is a four-day event that will include a roundtable discussion, readings by master’s of fine arts students, a gala reception for a former professor, and readings from RipRap and Watermark, Cal State Long Beach’s literary journals.
The roundtable discussion will take place tonight at 7 p.m. in The Pointe at the Walter Pyramid. This event is free.
“Even if you’re a psychology major, history major or a criminal justice major, you might find the evening very interesting,” said English professor Stephen Cooper.
Participants in the roundtable discussion include Cal State Long Beach faculty members and other professional writers, such as David Ulin, the editor of the Los Angeles Times book review, and Carolyn See, who, according to Cooper, is “one of the more prominent women writers from the Southland.”
Cooper said the group will engage in a discussion about the differences between West Coast writing and East Coast writing, what is distinctive about the West Coast, and who the most important writers are. The group will address West Coast publishing and “the challenges facing the poet or fiction writer or an essayist here on the West Coast,” according to Cooper.
Tuesday’s event will take place at the Soroptimist House at 7 p.m. Twelve recent graduates of the master of fine arts program in creative writing will be reading from their poetry and fiction. This event is also free and also open to the public.
Thursday will be set aside for a gala reception in honor of former CSULB professor Gerry Locklin. Guests will celebrate Locklin’s career and the publication of two books of poetry.
“One is a selection of Locklin’s poems throughout his whole career, and the other will be a Festschrift, which comes from the German language,” Cooper said. “It’s a book of essays or poems that’s given to somebody on the occasion of his or her retirement. It’s a gesture of honor and respect, so there will be several poets who have contributed to this volume.”
Friday will wrap up West Coast Writers, with a RipRap and Watermark reading and publication party. Students who have poems and short stories in this year’s volume will read a selection. The book will “be distributed free to everybody who helps to come celebrate,” Cooper said.
This is CSULB’s debut for Long Beach Celebrates. Cooper said he hoped that the event will become an annual tradition for the university.
