In one week, Gish Jen — whom Junot Diaz famously called “the Great American Novelist we're always hearing about” — and Chilean-Serbian filmmaker Vuk Lungulov-Klotz will virtually speak in this year’s Living Writers Series.
Appearing at 3 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 18, Jen has published celebrated books as well as short work appearing in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and many more. Speaking at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 20, SUNY Purchase alum Lungulov-Klotz wrote the award-winning feature film "Mutt," which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and is now a popular streaming choice on Netflix and elsewhere.
“The scheduling just worked out so that next week packs a wallop,” series organizer and creative writing professor Soma Mei Sheng Frazier said. “Jen will give a reading and chat with our virtual audience on Monday, and on Wednesday, Lungulov-Klotz will join us. It will be a wildly literary week at SUNY Oswego.”
Gish Jen’s work has been chosen for "The Best American Short Stories" five times, including for "The Best American Short Stories of the Century." Oprah Magazine calls her writing “a triumph of humor and sorrow.” A visiting professor at Harvard, she has been featured in a PBS "American Masters" special on the American novel, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has also earned a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study fellowship and numerous other accolades.
Vuk Lungulov-Klotz is a transgender storyteller who hopes to expand queer narratives. Raised between Chile, New York City and Serbia, he honed his skills in the Sundance Institute Labs, the Tribeca Film Institute, the Ryan Murphy HALF Initiative Program and SUNY Purchase. His debut feature film "Mutt" went on to an international premier at Berlinale 2023 and became the closing night film at the New Director/New Films Festival in New York City. “It’s a particular honor to welcome such a talented SUNY graduate back into our community and classrooms,” Frazier noted.
Virtual events in the Living Writers Series are free and open to both campus and community, made possible by ARTSwego and the Student Arts Fee, as well as numerous other partners including SUNY PRODiG and Library of America.
For more information or Zoom links for these talks, check out the Living Writers Series on the SUNY Oswego Events Calendar.
-- Submitted by the Living Writers Series