FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Press Release #08-201
VOICES Presents Ana Maria Spagna--Thursday, Nov. 13(St. Mary’s City, MD) Nov. 3, 2008 – Essayist and fiction writer Ana Maria Spagna will read from her most recent works as part of the English Department’s VOICES Reading Series on Thursday, Nov. 13, at 8:15 p.m. in Daugherty-Palmer Commons at St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM). The first book, entitled, Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus, explores her father’s role in the early Civil Rights movement. She will also read from her collection of nature essays, Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw, named the Best Books of 2004 by The Seattle Times. The reading is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Karen Anderson at 240-895-2017 or klanderson@smcm.edu.
Spagna lives and writes in Stehekin, Washington, a remote community in the North Cascade mountains accessible only by boat or float plane. Spagna’s stories and essays have appeared in dozens of journals including Orion, Utne, Oregon Quarterly, Pilgrimage, and Open Spaces, and in anthologies such as A Mile in Her Boots and Best Essays NW. She was recently named recipient of a grant from the Washington State Artists Trust for completion of Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus. Spagna received a Master of Arts in fiction writing from Northern Arizona University. She has taught writing at Northern Arizona University, American Intercontinental University, Gotham Writers Workshop, North Cascades Institute, and at various conferences and symposiums.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, and Kiplinger’s. Founded in 1840 as Maryland’s “monument school” commemorating the state’s first capital, SMCM is the state’s only public honors college, offering “an Ivy-level College with a public-school price tag” (Newsweek).
Some 2,000 students attend the college, which has the highest graduation rate for all Maryland public colleges and universities, and an SAT average for student admissions of 1252. The school’s waterfront campus along the St. Mary’s River in Southern Maryland is home to the 2007 National Intercollegiate Sailing Association Women’s, Sloop and Team champions.
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