Writer Jon Pineda shares his work during readings in Hofheimer Theater on Monday, November 15 at 7:00 p.m. and in the Neil Britton Art Gallery on Tuesday, November 16 at 11:00 a.m.
By Laynee H. Timlin | November 5, 2010
Writer, Jon Pineda
Writer Jon Pineda shares his work during readings on campus as part of the VWC Poet-in-Residence series. He will be in the Hofheimer Theater on Monday, November 15 at 7:00 p.m. and in the Neil Britton Art Gallery on Tuesday, November 16 at 11:00 a.m. He will also speak to a poetry class during the week.
Jon Pineda's latest book is a memoir published by University of Nebraska Press. SLEEP IN ME is a Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" 2010 Holiday Selection and a Publishers Weekly Fall 2010 "Indie Sleepers" Pick. It is about growing up in Chesapeake after the tragic car wreck that put his sister in a coma and eventually led to her death when he was a child. According to Assistant Professor of English, Gavin Pate, "It's a powerful book, and I have no doubt that his visit on our campus will be extraordinary."
Jon is also the author of the poetry collections THE TRANSLATOR'S DIARY, winner of the Green Rose Prize for Poetry, and BIRTHMARK, winner of the Crab Orchard Award Series Open Competition. The recipient of a Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, he teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte.
Book Synopsis
Against the backdrop of his teenage sister’s car accident—in which a dump truck filled with sand slammed into the small car carrying her and her friends—Jon Pineda chronicles his sister Rica’s sudden transformation from a vibrant high school cheerleader to a girl wheelchair bound and unable to talk. For the next five years of her life, her only ability to communicate was through her rudimentary use of sign language. Lyrical in its approach and unflinching in its honesty, Sleep in Me is a heartrending memoir of the coming-of-age of a boy haunted by a family tragedy.