Other than Inkwood Books, Bay area bookstores don't do a consistent job of bringing in nationally published authors. And though Barnes & Noble and Borders aren't in business to build communities, they'd be wise to do more to cultivate readers.
The role of visiting authors may seem insignificant, but it isn't. To literate folks, meeting and hearing a talented writer with a unique style can be enlightening. And any time folks get turned on to a new writer — books sell.
Of the Bay area's colleges, which are in the business of building communities, University of Tampa does a significant job of promoting literary events. Authors of poetry, plays, fiction and nonfiction appear throughout the year as part of Writers at the University, a series presented by the English and Writing department.
Iowa Fiction Prize-winning short story writer and Randall Jarrell Prize-winning poet Enid Shomer leads off the series this year with a reading at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, at UT's Scarfone/ Hartley Galleries.
Shomer's stories and poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry and Best New Stories from the South.
Her new book of poetry, Stars at Noon (University of Arkansas Press), portrays in verse the life of Jacqueline Cochran, founder and director of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP). A rich subject, Cochran grew up in poverty in a lumber town, headed up WASP during WWII, operated her own cosmetics line for three decades, flew competitively until she was 60 and ran for Congress.
Shomer is at work on a second book of stories. Her first, Imaginary Men (1993, University of Iowa Press), won the LSU/Southern Review Prize, given annually for the best first collection of fiction.
Future events in the Writers at the University series: a reading by novelist John Holman, director of creative writing at Georgia State University and recipient of the Whiting Writer's Award, at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18, at Scarfone/Hartley Galleries; and a staged reading of Manifest, the Pinter Review Prize-winning play by Brian Silberman on Friday, Oct. 24, in the Allen N. Reeves Theater.
Scarfone/Hartley Galleries is located at the corner of North B Street and Brevard Avenue on the University of Tampa campus. For more info, call 813-253-6216.
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2003.