Fresno State's Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing presents an evening with graduate degree candidates Mary Coomes, Kathryn Neves, and Tony Vang. This reading is one of three MFA showcase performances for 2023-24.

Time: 6:30 to 8 PM
Date: Friday, March 22, 2024
Place: Alice Peters Auditorium (PB 191) on campus

Admission: Free
Reception to follow.

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An MFA candidate in creative nonfiction, Mary Coomes studies and writes about the built environment, labor, and media through an intersectional feminist lens. She has served as an editorial intern with The Normal School and presented her work at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference, the Fresno Arts Council, and Fresno’s LitHop. She writes in multiple genres and is interested in efforts, past and present, to recover beauty despite the tendencies of capitalism.

Kathryn Neves is an MFA candidate in fiction at Fresno State. Her work has appeared in the Kolob Canyon Review, where she also served as a reader on the editorial staff. Her work explores generational trauma, mental illness, obsession, and the dichotomous power of artmaking in all its forms. While primarily a fiction writer, she is also an essayist, playwright, and poet; her work often hybridizes these forms and celebrates the synthesis between them. After graduation, she plans to pursue a doctorate in literary and cultural studies. 

Dante Blackgarden, the artist formerly known as Tony Vang, is an MFA candidate in poetry. He currently works as a teaching associate in the English Department, teaching his students personal creative writing techniques and philosophies that he is currently pioneering and developing: his Theory of Unconscious Writing, and his Dragon School Poetics. His works all chase, one way or another, after the fleeting shadow of love, but manifest through a wide array of forms: an epic Hmōng American lyric poem, a collection of multimodal ars poetica, and a collection of love poems to his wife too intimate to ever see publication.

All attendees are strongly encouraged to wear a mask when indoors. Visit Covid.FresnoState.edu for current campus health updates.

Parking is free after 5 PM in Lots P5 and P6, east of the Peters Business building. (Campus map)

All participants are welcome. For disability related accommodations or access information, please contact Brynn Saito at bsaito@mail.fresnostate.edu or 559.278.1569. Requests should be made at least one week in advance of the event.