The 2012-2013 Visiting Writers Series Featured CSULB Graduate and Author Kristen-Paige Madonia

October 19, 2012

The 2012-2013 Visiting Writers Series featured author Kristen-Paige Madonia on October 4th, 2012, at California State University, Long Beach’s Soroptomist House. Madonia read an abridged version of the first chapter of her first novel Fingerprints of You (Simon and Schuster, 2012) to a packed room. Following her reading, audience members asked Madonia several questions about her creative process and development of the novel. Madonia’s reading was a great start to what promises to be a special series. Click here to view Madonia’s reading and the Q & A session.

Madonia graduated with her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from CSULB in 2005. Upon graduation, she was named a Graduate Dean’s List Exceptional Artist and Scholar and was awarded the Best Thesis Award for the College of Liberal Arts for her collection of short stories. Madonia has also received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Tennessee Williams Fiction Prize and a scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. In 2008, she won the Marianne Russo Short Story Award, sponsored by the Key West Literary Seminar and judged by a panel of Board members that included acclaimed author Judy Blume who later said the following about Madonia’s Fingerprints of You:

Kristen-Paige Madonia is a remarkable young novelist. Her writing is luminous, her voice original, and the journey she takes us on, compelling. From the first page she pulls the reader into a world of authentic characters we’ve never met before, characters living real and complicated lives, and she doesn’t let go. What a thrill to discover this talented writer.   

Madonia teaches creative writing at the University of Virginia and at Writer House in Charlottesville.

The Visiting Writers Series has been a tradition at CSULB for decades, hosting many of the country’s most prominent writers. The 2012-2013 series is really something special because it welcomes back graduates of CSULB’s Creative Writing M.F.A. program who are now out in the world writing and publishing books.

All readings in the 2012-2013 Visiting Writers Series are co-sponsored by CSULB’s Department of English, English Students’ Association (ESA), HipPoetics Creative Writing Club, and Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation.

Information courtesy of Dr. Stephen Cooper of the Department of English  

Compiled and edited by Cortney Smethurst