By
Vanessa Francis
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA Poetry Center expands reading series to include
Novelist and UA creative writing professor Elizabeth Evans is scheduled to read a portion of her latest novel, "Growing in Eden," today as part of the UA Poetry Center's reading series.
"It's a book which involves a family living in the middle 60s and the exploration of male and female relations, as well as the blossoming of the times with the beginning of the Vietnam war," Evans said.
Evans, an Iowa native, said the book, published this year, is semi-based on her experiences growing up in the Midwest during that time.
"It's a tricky issue to say something is autobiographical, because everything we write to some extent is based on what happens to us in real life," she said.
Poetry Center director Jim Paul said that the Center is trying to expand the definition of poetry by inviting various types of writers to read from their work, which includes prose writers like Evans.
"We have chosen her work because we find it particularly poetic...the reading will be a night for story folks," he said.
Evans is also the author of two other novels - "The Blue Hour," published in 1994, and 1999's "Carter Clay," which is set in a town loosely based on Tucson.
She also wrote a compilation of short stories, titled "Locomotion," in 1987.
Evans has taught at the University of Arizona for 13 years and is currently teaching undergraduate and graduate seminars.
The reading will take place in the Modern Languages Auditorium tonight at 8.
