By CHAD KEBRDLE
Instructor of English, Institutional Advancement Associate, Ancilla College

DONALDSON — Indiana’s poet laureate George Kalamaras is coming to Ancilla College to read his works Thursday, Sept. 24, and the public is invited.

In partnership with Wild Rose Moon, 115 N. Michigan St., in Plymouth, Kalamaras has agreed to two events with different readings at each event. The first will take place 1:30 p.m. Sept. 24, in C231 at the college, 9601 Union Road. The second is planned for 6:30 p.m. that evening at Wild Rose Moon. Both events are free, with refreshments served at the evening event. More details about the readings will be available closer to the event date.

The events are sponsored by Ancilla College’s Humanities Division and Student Activities. Humanities Division Chair Joel Thomas invited Kalamaras after attending a reading at a conference. “George spends much of his time as Indiana’s poet laureate helping cultivate a love and knowledge of poetry among people who may not consider themselves as poetry lovers,” Thomas noted. “These events should appeal to not just die-hard poetry fans, but also anyone interested in good writing, interesting stories and learning about life’s beauty.”

According to the Indiana Arts Commission, “George Kalamaras was born in Chicago and grew up in Cedar Lake. He has published seven books of poetry and one of scholarship including Kingdom of Throat-Stuck Luck, winner of the Elixir Press Poetry Contest, The Recumbent Galaxy, co-authored with Alvaro Cardona-Hine and winner of the C&R Press Open Competition, and The Theory and Function of Mangoes, winner of the Four Way Books Intro Series; seven poetry chapbooks; numerous articles in scholarly journals; and approximately 800 poems in anthologies and magazines in the United States and abroad.

His work has received numerous honors, including a Creative Writing Poetry Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and two Individual Artist Fellowship Grants from the Indiana Arts Commission. In 1994, he received an Indo-U.S. Advanced Research Fellowship to India. Since 1990, he has served as professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.”