Stetson University’s Sullivan Creative Writing Program, headed by Terri Witek, Ph.D., professor of English and Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing, will present renowned poet Erica Dawson to read from her second collection of poetry, The Small Blades Hurt, at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 23, in Stetson’s Gillespie Museum, located at 234 E. Michigan Ave., DeLand. The Small Blades Hurt was published by Measure Press in January 2014.

Dawson is assistant professor of English and Writing at University of Tampa, where she teaches both undergraduate writers and graduate students in the low-residency M.F.A. program. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry 2012 and 2008; Poetry: A Pocket Anthology, and other journals and anthologies.

In a review of Dawson and her latest book, Slate says, “She generates great energy by pulling at the impossible and sometimes pleasurable tangles of what is constant in us, and what is disposable in the world.”

The Tim Sullivan Endowment for Writing Program was established at Stetson University in 1995 by Art and Melissa Sullivan, adding even more luster to the strong emphasis on creative writing. The endowment encourages and supports creative writing among students and faculty at Stetson through several major initiatives, including student scholarships, annual cash prizes awarded for best creative nonfiction, dramatic writing, fiction and poetry, campus visits by well-known writers, and funding for students and faculty to attend writers’ conferences  or to defray university membership in professional writers’ organizations, such as the Associated Writing Programs.

Stetson’s 2014-15 Sullivan Scholars will be introduced at this event. The public is invited to attend at no charge. A reception and book-signing will immediately follow the reading.

For more information about the poetry reading by Erica Dawson, contact Stetson’s English Department at (386) 822-7720, or Dr. Witek at [email protected].