Photo and Press Release provided by Ayva Kunes kunes@susqu.edu
SELINSGROVE — Memoirist, literary journalist, and novelist Marie Mutsuki Mockett will give a virtual reading of her work at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 8th. This event is free and open to the public as part of the Seavey Reading Series at Susquehanna University’s Writers Institute. To request a Zoom link for this event, please contact the Writers Institute at WritersInstitute@susqu.edu.
Born and raised in California to a Japanese mother and American father, Mockett graduated with a degree in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Columbia University. She later received her MFA from the Bennington Writers Seminars in Vermont.
Mockett is the author of three books. Her debut novel, Picking Bones from Ash, was shortlisted for the Saroyan International Prize for Writing and was a finalist for the Paterson Prize. Mockett’s memoir, Where the Dead Pause and the Japanese Say Goodbye, is an exploration of how the Japanese cope with grief and tragedy, set against the backdrop of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Tōhoku, Japan, and her family’s 350-year-old Buddhist temple. The memoir was a New York Times Editors Choice, a Barnes and Noble Discover Pick, an Indie Next Pick, a Finalist for the 2016 Pen Open Book Award, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2015 and a Finalist for the Indies Choice Best Book for Adult Nonfiction for 2016. Her most recent book, American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland, a work of memoir and literary journalism, was a finalist for the Lukas Prize for Nonfiction.
Mockett was awarded a Fellowship by the NEA and Japan US Friendship Commission in 2013, which enabled her to live in Japan. During the Fellowship, she was featured in the NHK (Japanese National Broadcasting) Documentary Venerating the Departed, which was broadcast internationally several times. Mockett has also been a Fellow at UCross and the Dora Maar House as well as the recipient of scholarships by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Currently, she teaches fiction and nonfiction at the Rainier Writing Workshop, in Tacoma, Washington.
For more information about programs sponsored by the Writers Institute and upcoming events, please visit www.susqu.edu/visitingwriters.
EVENT LISTING:
Memoirist and novelist Marie Mutsuki Mockett will give a virtual reading of her work at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 8th. To request a Zoom link for this event, please contact the Susquehanna University Writers Institute at WritersInstitute@susqu.edu.