NEW COLGATE PODCAST SERIES FEATURES WRITERS AND THEIR CRAFT
Tim O’Keeffe
Colgate University News & Events
Feb 13 2008
NY
Colgate professor Peter Balakian, whose book The Burning Tigris:
The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response was a New York Times
bestseller, is the first guest for a new podcast series produced
on campus.
The series – Colgate Conversations: Writers and their craft – features
authors talking about their unique writing styles and their latest
works. Faculty members, alumni, and visiting authors are among those
to be interviewed by Matt Leone, organizer of the annual Colgate
Writer’s Conference.
The podcast series is a new way to share a passion for writing that
is such an important part of the Colgate tradition.
During the podcast interview (mp3), Balakian answers questions about
his life as a poet who matters both as an artist, and steadily and
increasingly powerfully, as a voice in the political and cultural
life of the United States and of Armenia.
Last year, Balakian was awarded the Movses Khorenatsi Medal, one of
Armenia’s highest civilian honors that is presented to individuals
for their prominent contributions in the fields of culture, arts,
literature, education, and humanities.
Balakian is the author of eight books: most recently June-tree: New
and Selected Poems, 1974-2000. His memoir, Black Dog of Fate won the
1998 PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for the Art of the Memoir, and was a
best book of the year for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times,
and Publisher’s Weekly.
Balakian is the Constance H. and Donald M. Rebar Professor in the
Humanities and professor of English at Colgate, and he heads the
university’s creative writing program.
The university’s original podcast series, Colgate Conversations,
features faculty, alumni, and administrators talking about research
projects, higher education issues, and careers. Go here to see the
most recent episode of that series.