Two compelling writers joined PLU’s Third Visiting Writer Series of 2023-2024 on April 11 to share their creative work. The event was open to the community for in-person attendance, and the audience enjoyed a read-aloud of PLU’s Visiting Assistant Professors Bella Bravo’s and Miranda Morgan’s works.
Bravo received an MFA at the University of Wisconsin, was a Chancellor’s Fellow, and won the August Derleth Graduate Creative Writing Prize. Bravo’s stories have entered NY Tyrant, Driftless Magazine, Limestone Post, and others. At the event, they read an emotion-provoking short story titled “The Fuel”, based on an experience their family had during the Tubbs Fire of 2017. In response to the audience member’s question, “What is the number one thing you hope people get from your writing?” Bravo discusses, in short, that they hope to convey the experience of loss and to “not be pulled into that spiral”.
Morgan previously wrote and produced for TV projects, working with the History Channel, FOX, Animal Planet, Discovery, and taught the first creative writing class at the University of Bergen in Norway after being awarded a Fulbright Grant. Following Bravo’s fiction piece, the writer shared a chapter from her work-in-progress hybrid memoir, tentatively titled “Hold Us, Vibrant Bodies”. The memoir follows Morgan’s time at “Vista”, a treatment facility outside of L.A., California mapping how she navigates trauma, community, and ultimately resilience. Morgan chose the chapter “The Cassandras” to convey what it truly felt like to be in a recovery center. Morgan shared, “When you’re in a treatment center…the passing of time feels different”, and added that she writes for two reasons: to make people feel and to make people feel less alone.
At the end of the event, all of the writer’s students gathered around to take a heartwarming picture to commemorate the hard work of their professors. The Visiting Writers Series, sponsored by the English Department and Office of the Provost, will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2025, so stay on the lookout for more events in the future!
