Peter Ho Davies to read for The Writing Program Reading Series Feb. 26 and March 4

Fiction Writer Peter Ho Davies will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, for The Writing Program Reading Series at Washington University in St. Louis. In addition, Davies will give a talk on the craft of fiction at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 4.

Both events — which are sponsored by The Writing Program and the Department of English, both in Arts & Sciences — are free and open to the public and take place in Hurst Lounge, Room 201, Duncker Hall, on Washington University’s Hilltop Campus. A book-signing and reception will follow each, and copies of Davies’ works will be available for purchase. Duncker Hall is located at the northwest corner of Brookings Quadrangle, near the intersection of Brookings and Hoyt drives. For more information, call (314) 935-7130.

Davies is the author of two story collections, The Ugliest House in the World (1997) and Equal Love (2000), the latter of which was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His short fiction has been widely anthologized and also has appeared in Harpers, The Atlantic Monthly and The Paris Review. Davies has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.

Kellie Wells, assistant professor of English, noted that, “The characters who populate the stories of Peter Ho Davies are typically people uneasy about being people, uneasy about the degree to which they fall short when measured against the expectations of other people. For the characters in both The Ugliest House in the World and Equal Love, there’s often a sense of discomfort in the sometimes clumsy ways they interact with one another, in the halting ways they try to forge meaningful bonds.

“Although these characters make honest and dutiful attempts to be good husbands and sons and mothers, doing so does not always come naturally to them,” Wells added. “These are characters grasping after equilibrium, and what we witness are their wobbling attempts to right themselves when they’ve been precariously tipped to one side. And Davies is a writer of such generosity and empathy and canny insight that readers can’t help but briefly take on their own shoulders the plights of even the most hapless and hopeless and flawed among them.”

Davies directs the MFA Program at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. For the two weeks he is at Washington University, he will serve as Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature.