(GHENT, N.Y.) – The spring writers-in-residence program at Omi concludes with a public reading by nine Writers Omi residents followed by a barbecue celebration at the Visitors Center at Omi International Arts Center on Saturday, May 16, 2015, at 5pm. The reading is free and open to the community at large; donations are appreciated for the barbecue to follow.

This is the second reading hosted by Writers Omi this spring, which provides residencies to international literary voices across all types of literature. Like all Writers Omi readings, these events bring unique groups of talented literary voices to an upstate New York audience who might not otherwise be exposed to their work. These are spontaneous presentations, shaped by the writers and translators who are in residence at a given time.

At this reading, according to DW Gibson, Director of Writers Omi, attendees can expect a diversity of literary talents ranging from genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and theater. Notably, for a residency focused on international exchange, there are also several rare translation talents including an author who belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority of Finns as well as a resident who writes in the Basque language.

The writers who will read on May 16 are:

Justin Go‘s (US, Fiction) first novel, The Steady Running of the Hour is being translated into more than twenty languages. Originally from Los Angeles, Justin has lived in Berlin, London and Paris, and he continues to write and travel between the United States and Europe.

Aai Prins (Holland, Translation) works as an interpreter for the Dutch courts and as a translator of Russian literature. Her translations include works of Chekhov, Bulgakov, Gogol and Khlebnikov, and she is currently working on Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. She has been awarded the Aleida Schot Prize (1001) and the FilterTranslation Prize (2013).

Megan McDowell (US, Translation) is a literary translator based in Santiago, Chile working from Spanish to English. She has translated works by Latin American novelists including Alejandro Zambra, Arturo Fontaine, Carlos Busqued, Juan Emar, and Álvaro Bisama.

Sölvi Björn Sigurdsson‘s (Iceland, Fiction/Nonfiction/Poetry) second novel, The Murakami Girlfriend, was listed as one of the novels of the decade by Iceland’s biggest newspaper, Frettabladid. His non-fiction work, poetry, and other novels have received numerous awards.

Kaj Korkea-aho (Finland, Fiction) is from Helsinki and belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority of Finns and writes in Swedish. In addition to three novels, he has written comedy sketches for TV and radio as well as a couple of stage plays. He has also hosted television and radio shows and done work as an actor.

Kirmen Uribe (Spain, Fiction) writes in the Basque language. He won the National Prize of Literature in Spain in 2009 for his first novel, Bilbao-New York-Bilbao which was translated into 14 languages. His poetry collection Meanwhile Take My Hand was translated into English by Elizabeth Macklin and was shortlisted for the 2008 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. His work has appeared in several European and American publications including The New Yorker and El País.

Denise Kumani Gantt (US, Theater/Poetry) is an interdisciplinary theater artist whose plays and performance pieces include meditations/from the ash, winner of the Artscape 1997 Best Play Contest and voted Best New Play by the Baltimore Alternative and CityPaper; Three Stories to the Ground, written with Gabriel Shanks and winner of Baltimore Theatre Project’s Outstanding Vision in Theatre award; anatomy/lessons selected as part of Penumbra Theater’s Cornerstone Project; and more.

The work of Tia Clark (US, Fiction) has appeared in American Short Fiction, Fourteen Hills, FiveChapters, Epiphany, and elsewhere. She was the recipient of the Indiana University Writer of the World Fellowship and a Ross Lockridge Award for Fiction Writing.

Mike Fu (China/US, Translation/Fiction) is a Brooklyn-based writer and translator who has translated screenplays and written material for contemporary Chinese filmmakers including Huang Weikai, Li Ning, and Yang Jin. His fiction has appeared in Enaegon Magazine.

Since its founding in 1992, Omi has hosted hundreds of authors and translators, representing more than fifty countries in the rural setting of Ghent, New York. The colony’s strong international emphasis reflects the spirit of cultural exchange that is part of Ledig’s enduring legacy. The program was named for German publisher, Heinrich Maria Ledig-Rowohlt, who was noted for his passionate commitment to quality in literature. His authors included Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Yukio Mishima, Jean-Paul Sartre, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, Toni Morrison and Thomas Pynchon. Writers Omi welcomes published writers and translators of every type of literature. International, cultural and creative exchange is a foundation of our mission, and a wide distribution of national background is an important part of our selection process.

Omi International Arts Center seeks to foster an environment of creative exploration and exchange, professional opportunity and exposure, and a stylistically and culturally diverse community for creative artists from around the world. Through our programs and resulting public events – including our Residency Programs, The Fields Sculpture Park, Architecture Omi, and Education Omi – Omi contributes to a vibrant arts culture locally, regionally, and internationally.