SLAB, Wednesday, April 18, 2012

SLAB will host its annual magazine release event on Wednesday, April 18 in the Russell Wright Alumni House. Pre-reading festivities, which include exhibits showcasing student writing, begin at 7:30 PM. The feature artist will begin his reading at 8:00 PM. This year’s SLAB speaker will be Jim Daniels, a poet, fiction writer, and screenwriter whose books include Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry (2011), Trigger Man (2011), From Milltown to Malltown (2010), a collaboration with photographer Charlee Brodsky and writer Jane McCafferty, Mr. Pleasant (2007), and In Line for the Exterminator (2007). In 2007, he was awarded the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize for his collection Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies. His independent films include "Mr. Pleasant” and "Dumpster." His poetry has appeared in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies, and has been featured on Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac" and Ted Kooser's "American Life in Poetry" series. His poem "Factory Love" is displayed on the roof of a race car. Daniels has received the Brittingham Prize for Poetry, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and two from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His collaboration with Charlee Brodsky earned him a Tillie Olsen Prize from the Working-Class Studies Association in 2006. A highly successful writer, Daniels is also an accomplished professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has earned the Ryan Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Elliott Dunlap Smith Award for Teaching and Educational Service, and a Faculty Service Award from the Carnegie Mellon Alumni Association.