Josh Aaseng — who will close out this fall’s Living Writers Series with a virtual discussion at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 29 — will bring a variety of experience and insight to wrap this year’s lineup. 

Aaseng was well-versed in writing and directing long before he saw his own documentary, “Manifest Destiny Jesus,” screened internationally and chosen as the winner of the Audience Choice Award at the DC Black Film Festival.

He has worked in the U.S. and abroad at venues including The Guthrie Theatre, ACT Theatre and Book-It Repertory Theatre. Aaseng has written and directed celebrated adaptations of literary works including Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” and supported the development of dozens of world premiere stage adaptations. A seasoned arts administrator from Seattle, Aaseng is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

“One thing my students noted,” said Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, the creative writing professor who collaborated with the Oswego Reading Initiative, the History Department and ARTSwego to organize the series, “is Aaseng’s versatility. A short script of his leveraged gallows humor to plunge our class into a discussion of the national zeitgeist. Yet it was a complete departure from the tone of ‘Manifest Destiny Jesus,’ the probing documentary he produced with Daemond Arrindell and T. Geronimo Johnson, whose novels have been included on Time Magazine’s list of top ten books and awarded the Saroyan International Prize for Writing.”

Aaseng will be the final author to appear in the fall 2023 SUNY Oswego Living Writers Series, which has featured nine celebrated authors ranging from Dr. Josie Méndez-Negrete and the subject of her plática to MacArthur Genius Awardee and #1 New York Times bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates; from global politics expert Brian Klaas to U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Juan Felipe Herrera. 

“Best believe we’ll be back with a bang in 2024,” Frazier promised. “The fall ’24 lineup is coming together now, with spectacular literary surprises in store.”

For more information, visit the SUNY Oswego events calendar and search for "Living Writers Series."

-- Submitted by the Living Writers Series