Georgina Kleege in Berkeley Writers at Work

Georgina Kleege, Lecturer in the English Department, will be the guest author at the Berkeley Writers at Work fall 2010 event, on Wednesday, October 6 from noon to 1:30 in the Morrison Library, 101 Doe Library.  The event is free and open to the public.

A specialist in creative writing and disability studies, Kleege received her B.A. from Yale and has been at Berkeley since 2003. She specializes in creative nonfiction, disability autobiography, and blindness and visual art.  She teaches courses in creative writing and disability studies. Her readings and presentations take her to universities and art museums across the United States and Canada, most recently to the “Art Beyond Sight Conference” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Six of her essays have been cited as “notable essays” in The Best American Essays series, in six different years. Among her works are the books Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller (Gallaudet University Press, 2006), Sight Unseen (Yale University Press, 1999), and the novel Home for the Summer (Post-Apollo Press, 1989).

“[Blind Rage] is utterly absorbing, both in its graceful renditions of particular days in Keller’s life and in the author’s self-analysis along the way. Kleege is a gifted writer—her description of Keller’s final day is wondrous. This book has a cumulative power, and the reader—whether or not already familiar with Keller’s life—will become deeply moved,” says Margaret Heilbrun in the September 2006 Library Journal. Arthur Danto in the April 1999 issue of The New Republic calls Sight Unseen “a provocative book, gracefully written and morally urgent,” while F. Gonzalez-Crussi (Commonweal, August 1999) says that the writing is “impeccable, elegantly sparing prose.”

Kleege will read from her works and be interviewed about her writing process.  Be on the look-out for a follow-up post describing the event in the coming weeks.

The Berkeley Writers at Work series provides a forum for campus authors to discuss their writing process:  Where do their ideas come from?  How do they draft, revise?  Do others read works in progress?  What is the role of editors?

More information about the series, including past guests and links to video, can be found at http://writing.berkeley.edu/bwaw/. For questions, contact Steve Tollefson, tollef@berkeley.edu