Christopher Kempf is the author of Late in the Empire of Men, which won the 2015 Levis Prize from Four Way Books. Recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, he is currently a doctoral candidate in English Literature at the University of Chicago.

Corey Van Landingham is the author of Antidote, winner of the Ohio State University Press/The Journal Award in Poetry, and Love Letter to Who Owns the Heavens, forthcoming from Tupelo Press. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Georgia Review, and The New Yorker. She currently teaches in the MFA program at the University of Illinois.

Van Landingham and Kempf will be reading alongside University of Houston Creative Writing Program students Josh English, Kim Philley, and Kaj Tanaka.

Cocktails start at 6:30 PM, followed by the program at 7 PM.

Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts presents readings from University of Houston Creative Writing Program graduate students and contributors to its pages. The monthly Gulf Coast Reading Series supports the journal’s mission to spotlight the work of both esteemed and emerging writers with voices as diverse as the Gulf itself.