Zoë Wise – Tiffany L. Thomas – Heather Arrufo – Andrew Luft –

Venus Fultz – Brandi Jo Nyberg

Saturday, April 13, 7pm
in the Bear Gallery

Fairbanks Arts is delighted to welcome third year graduate students from the UAF MFA program who will share their works in this April reading in the Bear Gallery. Having almost finished their degree, our readers can look back at the excellent literary education provided by their department which is helping them find their unique voices. We are excited to listen to fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. We hope to see you there in support of their talents!  

Zoë Wise‘s writing has appeared in a variety of places including McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Thrice Fiction Magazine, The Northern Review, and others. Before landing in Alaska Zoë lived in Burkina Faso, Jordan, Montana, and Georgia, though she spent most of her life in Bellingham, Washington. Zoë has two dogs and will soon have two degrees in Creative Writing.

Tiffany L. Thomas is a dual MA/MFA graduate student at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She is a poetry editor for Permafrost Magazine, a freelance editor of engineering manuscripts, a volunteer ELL tutor, and, presumably, a poet. Her recent work can be found in Menacing Hedge, the Watershed Review and in Better World Books’ Beer, Wine, and Spirits Anthology. She is a recipient of the Richard S. Lynch Writing Award and the Catholic Poetry Society Award.

Heather Aruffo lived in five states and three countries before landing in Alaska, where she is a third year MFA candidate in fiction. She has an ScB in Chemistry from Brown University and when she isn’t writing, can be found running, shooting guns, breaking hearts, or driving desolate highways with her car, Harvey Dent. Her work was a finalist for the 2018 Montana Prize in Fiction and is forthcoming in the Laurel Review.

 

Venus Fultz left sunny Southern California to brave the freezing temperatures of Fairbanks in order to write the first novel of his exceedingly queer fantasy series. He received his BFA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Riverside. His writing is constantly having an affair with fantasy, science fiction, and horror and possibly always includes coded directions for how to destroy patriarchal capitalism.  He is currently graduating with his MFA in Fiction

 

Andrew Luft was brought up in the raucously quiet suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. Before Andrew could spell, he and his father would tear through the power-washed streets of downtown Powell, shouting the lyrics of Meat Loaf’s “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” from car windows while innocent bystanders shielded the ears of their young ones. As a grown-up, Andrew came to Alaska to pursue an MFA in Screenwriting in an attempt to make sense of his admiration for movie soundtracks. Though screenwriting has claimed his mind, poetry will always have his heart. After graduating, Andrew plans to pursue a career in music supervision for television and film.

Brandi Jo Nyberg likes to spend her time in the woods, on rivers, growing food, and writing about those things. Her writing has been published and is forthcoming in a handful of environmental and literary magazines, including Tinge, Marathon Lit Review, and Canary: Journal of the Environmental Crisis. After graduating with her MFA in Creative Nonfiction, Brandi Jo is pursuing her dream of starting a small farm.

 

For more information on this event, email literary@fairbanksarts.org or call (907) 456 – 6485 ext. 224.