LITERATURE + LECTURES

Through a collaboration with Houston’s Brazos Bookstore, Gulf Coast is proud to present twenty-one readers from the University of Houston’s nationally-acclaimed graduate program in creative writing in the Gulf Coast Reading Series. Gulf Coast, a biannual journal featuring innovative fiction for the literary-minded, presents this reading series, bringing writers from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program to the ears of our city. Through the University of Houston's literary journal Gulf Coast, audiences around the world can experience the poetry and fiction of emerging authors.

January 20, 2012:

David Lombardi is a fifth-year PhD candidate in fiction. He grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. His fiction has appeared in Best New American Voices 2010 and will be forthcoming in many well-respected journals across the country, even though they don't know it yet.

Originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, Olga Mexina was transported to the United States at the age of twelve. She grew up in New York and got her BA from New York University. She is a poet and translator currently pursuing her MFA in poetry at the University of Houston, where she also works as a Teaching Assistant. Her translations of poetry and short prose have been published in Big Pulp, The Pedestal Magazine, Mad Hatters' Review, and others. She has worked as a translator for the African Film Festival in New York and the St. Petersburg Documentary Film Studios in Russia. Olga lives with her daughter Elsa and words.

Allie Rowbottom received her BA in creative writing and gender studies from New York University and her MFA in writing from the California Institute of the Arts. She is currently a PhD candidate in nonfiction writing at the University of Houston. In her free time Allie enjoys yoga, horses, and tea.