McNeese hosts poetry reading

Prize-winning poet Vandana Khanna will give a free poetry reading at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10, in the Burton Conference Center as the Leo Luke Marcello Visiting Poet. A book signing and reception will follow.

Khanna is the author of the poetry collections “Train to Agra” (2001) and “Afternoon Masala” (2014) and the chapbook, “The Goddess Monologues” (2015). Her work has appeared in the New England Review and the Missouri Review as well as such anthologies as “Raising Lily Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace,” “Others Will Enter the Gates: Immigrant Poets on Writing” and “Not Somewhere Else But Here: A Contemporary Anthology of Women and Place.”

Her poems have won the Crab Orchard Review First Book Prize, the Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize, the Diode Editions Chapbook Competition, the Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize and she has been nominated for five Pushcart Prizes.

Born in New Delhi, India and raised in Falls Church, Virginia, Khanna earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and her Master of Fine Arts degree from Indiana University. She has taught English and creative writing at colleges and universities across the country, including Indiana University, Pitzer College, Whittier College and the University of Southern California. Currently, she serves as the co-poetry editor of the Los Angeles Review.

Persons needing accommodations as provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act should contact the ADA Coordinator at 337-475-5428, voice; 337-475-5960, fax; 337-562-4227, TDD/TTY, hearing impaired; or by email at cdo@mcneese.edu.