By Jennifer Reynolds
Staff Writer
The California Writers Series brings California writers to read and discuss their work with students, faculty and members of the Bakersfield community on the California State University, Bakersfield campus.
On Nov. 12, The CWS presented Lucy Corin, an American novelist, short story writer, and the Program Director for the University of California, Davis Creative Writing Program.
Corin is the winner of the 2012 American Academy of Arts and Letters John Guare Writer’s Fund Rome Prize. Corin’s stories have appeared in The Mid-American Review, Conjunctions, Tin House, Ploughshares, PEN America, and the Iowa Review. She is anthologized in the 1994 Iowa Anthology of Innovation Fiction and both the 1997 and 2003 editions of New Stories From the South.
Corin read a short story from her most recent book, 100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses, called the “Mad Men” which is a coming of age story from a girl’s perspective who is trying to cope with the reality of a tough world.
After the reading, Corin took many questions from the audience where she explained her writing process, her use of humor with dark themes, and her tendency to write about negative experiences. In the end, the audience was able to buy copies of 100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses and get them signed. She also had apocalypse stamps to give out.
Students among the audience had positive words to say.
Sophomore Biochemistry major, Yaritza Castro said, “I thought it was very interesting, because of the Madman and she didn’t reveal it to the end”.
Freshman Biology major, Mauricio Vargas said he, “Empathizes with the stories and really liked them”.
English professor Dr. MacArthur who helps organize the event said, “I choose people who represent a range of aesthetic choices that give different ideas of what’s going on in California”.
MacArthur also enjoyed Corin’s reading saying, “It was a wonderful and engaging with an interesting psychological and realist approach”.
This free public even was part of the California Writer Series which takes place every academic year and is sponsored by Poets and Writers, Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society, Walter Steirn Library, and the Department of English.
