Daniel Alarcón and Debora Kuan Lead Writers Speak Wednesday on April 18

Daniel Alarcón and Debora Kuan will be the next guests in the spring Writers Speak Wednesdays series of free author talks and readings open to the public at Stony Brook Southampton. Alarcón and Kuan will read from and talk about their work on Wednesday, April 18, at 7 p.m.

Alarcón is the host of “Radio Ambulante,” an award-winning Spanish-language podcast distributed by NPR. His books include War by Candlelight, Lost City Radio and At Night We Walk in Circles. City of Clowns, his 2003 fiction published in The New Yorker, received a graphic novel adaption in 2015. His most recent book, The King Is Always Above the People, was long-listed for the 2017 National Book Award. He is a recipient of a Lannan Literary Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fulbright Fellowship. Born in Lima, Peru and raised in the United States, Alarcón studied Creative Writing at the Iowa Writers Workshop. He now teaches at the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Kuan is the author of two collections of poetry, Xing and Lunch Portraits. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in The Awl, The Baffler, Boston Review, Brooklyn Rail, Fence, Pleiades, The Iowa Review and other journals. A former fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center Writers’ Institute in fiction and nonfiction, she received a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Princeton University. She has taught at the University of Iowa, The College of New Jersey and New York Institute of Technology and is currently a director of English Language Arts assessment at the College Board.

The next writers scheduled for the spring series are Melissa Febos and Alex Gilvarry, reading on April 25. On May 2, the evening will be devoted to readings by degree candidates currently enrolled in the MFA in Creative Writing and Literature program.

Writers Speak Wednesdays programs are free and open to the public. The evenings begin with a brief reception at 6:30 p.m.; readings begin at 7 p.m. and are followed by a Q&A and book signing. All programs are held on the second floor of Chancellors Hall in the Radio Lounge at Stony Brook Southampton, 239 Montauk Highway, Southampton.

For more information, call 631-632-5030 or visit stonybrook.edu/mfa.