Becoming a Writer: A Discussion with Dana Gioia, Former California Poet Laureate
Join us on Zoom for our monthly meeting!
Dana Gioia, former California Poet Laureate, will present “Becoming a Writer” at the Tri-Valley Writers March meeting. He will read poems and discuss his own odd journey towards being a writer. He will also discuss his new memoir, Studying with Miss Bishop: Memoirs from a Young Writer’s Life. View an excerpt from Dana’s latest memoir here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NyMHb4ahtI.
This presentation isn’t just for poets—poetic verse inspires and enhances all genres.
For poetry readings and other talks, check out these videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6dDuuRPo6HXxn69LMLrwyw, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHHVHSe-_AM.
Join us on Saturday, March 20, 2021 at 2:00 p.m. via Zoom.
Meeting Cost: FREE*
An Email RSVP is REQUIRED at president@trivalleywriters.org by Thursday, March 18, 2021*. (Without your email, we can’t send the Zoom invitation to you). Due to time constraints in preparation for the event, RSVP emails sent after the deadline—especially on the day of the event—will NOT be answered.
*Zoom Meeting link will ONLY be sent to those who have RSVP’d by the RSVP deadline.
*NOTE: Zoom limits our meetings to the first 100 registrations.
During Dana’s tenure as Poet Laureate of California, he became the first laureate to visit all 58 counties of California. His statewide tour became the subject of a BBC radio documentary. An internationally recognized poet and critic, Dana is the author of five collections of verse, including Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award, and 99 Poems: New & Selected (2016), which won the Poets’ Prize for the best new poetry volume of the year. His critical collections include Can Poetry Matter? (1992), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. He has also written four opera libretti and edited twenty literary anthologies. Dana served as the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) between 2003 and 2009 and received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the second-highest civilian award bestowed by the president of the United States, in 2008.
Gioia was born in Los Angeles into a working-class family of Italian and Mexican heritage. He was the first person in his family to attend college.
He earned a BA and MBA from Stanford and an MA from Harvard. For fifteen years he worked in business in New York becoming a vice-president of Kraft-General Foods. He wrote at nights and on weekends. In 1992, he quit to write full-time.
He has been awarded eleven honorary doctorates and many honors, including the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame, the Poet’s Prize, and the Aiken-Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry. He served as the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California before retiring in 2020.
He divides his time between Los Angeles and Sonoma County, California.
Questions? Email Jordan Bernal at president@trivalleywriters.org.