When celebrated writer Lydia Davis has an idea for a story, she doesn't waste any time getting it down on paper.
"If you wait at all, you lose the exact wording of it, which is sometimes really important," Davis said. "My first drafts are often just little scribbles on the backs of envelopes."
Davis will give a reading of her work at 7:30 tonight in Foster Auditorium. Admission is free and open to the public. She said she plans to read mostly new material at the event.
"There's a really vital intelligence in her writing," said Sheila Squillante, associate director of the Master of Fine Arts program and senior lecturer in the Department of English. "People use the word 'innovative' to describe her work, and it's really apt. Her work defies categorizations."
Davis' work has appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker and Harper's, and she has written four collections of short fiction. One collection, Varieties of Disturbance, was named as a finalist for the National Book Award in 2007. She is also known for her translations of French novels, literary criticism and memoirs.
Davis' visit has been made possible largely by Steven Fisher, a 1970 alumnus of the Penn State Department of English, department head Robin Schulze said.
Davis was named the first Steven Fisher Writer-in-Residence. As such, she participated in a four-day program that allowed her to come to Penn State to meet individually with MFA students, Squillante said. Tonight's reading is also funded by the program.
"The nice thing is that our graduate students work with our faculty every semester," Squillante said. "They get an excellent education, but it's just a great opportunity to break from what you're used to and get something else from someone so well-established."
In addition to Fisher, the Department of English and the College of Liberal Arts are sponsoring the event.
Charlotte Holmes, associate professor of English and women's studies, said the idea for the program grew out of a three-year series of visiting poets that Robin Becker, professor of English and women's studies, organizes. Holmes said they wanted to make it a permanent fixture after seeing the program's benefits for students.
Holmes added she is teaching Davis' Break It Down, a collection of short stories, in her writing class.
"It's a book I've read numerous times," she said. "I'm always just amazed. Her stories tend to be very short, in the three- to five-page range, but they pack so much into a short story."
