Texas A&M University-Texarkana’s Program for Learning and Community Engagement (PLACE) is bringing award-winning author Nafissa Thompson-Spires to campus as this semester’s PLACE Keynote Speaker. The event will take place Thursday, November 3rd from 6:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. in Eagle Hall, located on the first floor of the University Center Building. This event is free and open to the public.
Each year the university selects a common reader text that is read and discussed by all first-year students in the university’s freshman seminar classes. Thompson-Spires’ book, “Heads of the Colored People,” was chosen as A&M-Texarkana’s common reader this year. A collection of short stories, “Heads of the Colored People” won the PEN Open Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Award for First Fiction.
Thompson-Spires earned a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Cornell University, teaching both in the MFA and undergrad programs.
PLACE is a faculty-led program designed to create a community of learners comprised of A&M-Texarkana students, faculty, staff, and the community at large. PLACE chooses an annual theme around which to organize a lecture series and other activities that provide focal points for learning and discussion. This year’s theme is “Transformative Texts: Social Responsibility.”
For more information, contact Dr. Doug Julien PLACE Program Coordinator, at djulien@tamut.edu or visit the PLACE website at www.tamut.edu/PLACE.
