The University of Indianapolis announced its 2024-25 season of the Kellogg Writer’s Series. This year, the series features various authors and their selected readings, one being Associate Professor of English Liz Whitacre and her book “It Could Account for the Panic,” according to a University of Indianapolis press release.
According to the press release, all Kellogg Writers Series events are free of charge and are open to the UIndy community, as well as the broader Indianapolis public, as a way to see and interact with the works of published authors. According to the press release, the series presentations are also approved for Lecture/Performance credit, commonly known as L/P, for UIndy students.
According to the release, a total of four authors are presenting this academic year. They include Beth Nguyen, a memoirist, who is presenting Wednesday, Oct. 23 and novelist Gina Chung, who will read her work Tuesday, Nov. 19. In the second semester, poet April Gibson will present Tuesday, March 4, 2025, followed by Liz Whiteacre, a poet and University of Indianapolis professor, who will speak on Tuesday, April 8, 2025. According to the press release, all events in this series occur in UIndy Hall A of the Schwitzer Student Center, and begin at 7:30 p.m.
Associate Professor of English and Chair of the Kellogg Writers Series Barney Haney says students can expect an authentic experience from the presenting authors. He said this authenticity can be a transformative experience for the audience member.
“When you see somebody being themselves up there and expressing their truths in that kind of way, that can really change the way that you see yourself,” Haney said. “These artists go up there, and I tell them, be as honest as you can possibly be.”
Junior creative writing major UIndy student Piper Parks, a member of ENGL-478, the class that puts on the Kellogg Writers Series, says Haney encouraged her to become involved with the series and that she was drawn to its mission. Parks described the series as an opportunity for students, including those who are writers, to interact with published authors, as well as those who are not English majors at all.
Parks described the series as a warm and welcoming environment that is open to a wide variety of people. She added that it is a space where students can come and relax, sit and hear a writer read their works and then speak to them afterward. According to Parks and Haney, students also host a podcast, which features interviews between Kellogg Writers Series students and the presenting authors. It can be found on Apple and Spotify.
Haney said the Kellogg Writers Series is well-established. According to both him and a 2019 “The Reflector” article, the series was founded by Bruce Gentry and Elizabeth Weber decades ago.
Nguyen’s work, titled “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” was featured in multiple prominent publications, according to her website. These include receiving an “Editor’s Choice” award from “The New York Times,” as well as being featured in “Time” Magazine’s “Must-read Books of 2023.” Chung is the author of “Green Frog,” a short story collection. Her website states that the book was featured in various media, including “Elle” Magazine and the “Good Morning America” television series. Gibson’s work has been featured in a variety of publications, ranging from “The Lancet” medical journal to “The Chicago Defender” newspaper.
In addition to Nguyen, Chung and Gibson, Whiteacre is the fourth Kellogg Writers Series presenter this year. She will be reading Tuesday, April 8, 2025, with selections from her upcoming work, entitled “It Could Account for the Panic.” Whiteacre described the book as a collaboration between herself and Faculty Adjunct for Music Meadow Bridgham. After initially meeting in 2019 during the Art/Song Project, Bridgham later approached Whiteacre after Bridgham’s diagnosis with temporal lobe epilepsy.
“I started writing poems, persona poems, from Meadow Bridgham’s point of view,” Whiteacre said. “So the book is about Meadow Bridgham’s experiences with temporal lobe epilepsy, written by me.”
A persona poem, according to Whiteacre, is one in which the poet writes from the perspective of something or someone that is not themself. She used the example of a cellphone to describe a persona poem.
“So, for example, if you wrote a poem from the point of view of your cellphone, what would the cellphone have to say?” Whiteacre asked. “And you would write it from the cellphone’s voice, from the perspective of that object, and you would get a glimpse into the cellphone’s experience.”According to Whiteacre, her book will be published in March, with the Kellogg Writers Series presentation being shortly thereafter. One of Whiteacre’s poems, “It Could Account for the Panic,” can be found in the journal “Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature.”
