UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Nonfiction writer and poet Kelle Groom will offer a reading as part of this year’s Mary E. Rolling Reading Series. The reading, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12, in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium on Penn State’s University Park campus.
Groom is the author of four books of poetry and two books of nonfiction. Her first memoir, “I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl,” was named New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice in 2011. The book also was named a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, Literary Journal Best Memoir, Barnes & Noble Book of the Month, Oprah O Magazine selection, and an Oxford American Editor’s pick. Her essays and poems have appeared in journals such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Ploughshares, Best American Poetry, AGNI, American Poetry Review, and Poetry, among others.
Groom’s newest book is “How to Live: A Memoir-in-Essays,” published by Tupelo Press in October 2023. Writer Nick Flynn characterizes the book this way: “Is home the place you left, or the place you are now? This is a central question in this fiercely won, wildly original, and ultimately beautiful meditation. Kelle Groom is one of our most gifted writers, and this book is her “Odyssey,” which means we will end up back where we started, only changed. Along the way we will visit strange lands, we will come face-to-face with our fears, we will find ourselves among kind strangers, and we will understand why we are alive. This is a book which wrestles with our hardest, darkest questions, and comes out on the side of gratitude.”
Groom was previously distinguished writer-in-residence and assistant professor of humanities at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe. She also is the former poetry editor of The Florida Review and now serves as a nonfiction editor for AGNI Magazine. A longtime resident of Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she directed programs at the Fine Arts Work Center, Groom now lives in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where she is director of communications and foundation relations for the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
The Mary E. Rolling Reading Series is a program offered by Penn State’s Creative Writing Program in English. The series receives support from the College of the Liberal Arts; the Department of English; the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment; the Mary E. Rolling Lectureship in Creative Writing; and Penn State University Libraries. A full list of readings in the 2023-24 series can be found at creativewriting.psu.edu.