The University of Calgary’s Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program in the Faculty of Arts celebrates the residencies of two of its writers with a free public reading. Incoming Writer-in-Residence Oana Avasilichioaei and outgoing Writer-in-Residence Marcello Di Cintio will read together on Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 7:30 pm at the Arrata Opera Centre, 1315 – 7th St. SW.

Avasilichioaei, a poet and translator from Montreal, is the author of feria: a poempark, a translation of Romanian poet Nichita Stănescu, Occupational Sickness and a collaborative work with Erín Moure, Expeditions of a Chimæra. A translation of Les Îles by Quebecoise poet, Louise Cotnoir, will be published as The Islands in 2011. Her recently completed manuscript, We, Beasts, composes debauched poetic tales about a child, a tyrant and a wolfbat.

U of C alumnus Marcello Di Cintio is an award-winning travel writer who has enjoyed stints abroad in West Africa, North Africa, India and the Middle East. He is the author of two full-length travelogues, Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa and Poets and Pahlevans. Marcello is also a freelance magazine writer whose writing has also appeared in magazines such as The Walrus, EnRoute, Geist and Swerve. His current project is a book about communities in the world that live in the shadows of walls, fences and other ‘hard’ barriers.

Housed in the Faculty of Arts at the UofC, the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program helps advance the careers of Calgary writers and enriches the local writing community through two extended residency programs: a 10-month residency for emerging Canadian writers; and residencies of varying length for writers of international distinction. For more information: www.markinflanagan.com.