Stellar Alumni Reading Series: Oliver de la Paz and Allegra Hyde

The Creative Writing Program in the Department of English at ASU presents a reading by two of its star graduates: poet Oliver de la Paz (MFA 1999) and fiction writer Allegra Hyde (MFA 2015). The event takes place on Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 7 p.m. in Ross-Blakley Hall (RBHL), room 196 on ASU's Tempe campus.

Oliver de la Paz is the Poet Laureate of Worcester, MA for 2023-2025. He is the author and editor of seven books: "Names Above Houses," "Furious Lullaby," "Requiem for the Orchard," "Post Subject: A Fable," and "The Boy in the Labyrinth," a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry. His newest work, "The Diaspora Sonnets," is published by Liveright Press (2023). With Stacey Lynn Brown he co-edited "A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry."

Oliver serves as the co-chair of the Kundiman advisory board. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Poetry, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He has received grants from the NEA, NYFA, the Artist’s Trust, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and has been awarded multiple Pushcart Prizes. He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the Low-Residency MFA Program at PLU.

Allegra Hyde is the author of three books of fiction: the story collection "Of This New World," which won the John Simmons Iowa Short Fiction Award; the novel "Eleutheria," which was a finalist for the Ohioana Book Award and shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize; and the collection "The Last Catastrophe," which was named an Editors’ Choice by The New York Times.

Hyde’s stories, essays, and humor pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, BOMB, and other venues. She has received four Pushcart Prizes, and her work has been anthologized in Best American Travel Writing, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. She has received fellowships and grants from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, The Elizabeth George Foundation, MacDowell, the Jentel Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Oberlin College.