Readers for October 20 event: Shirley Lim (top), Chryss Yost (l) and George Yatchisin (r)
Dr. Chryss Yost and George Yatchisin, staff members at the Gevirtz School, will be featured readers as part of “Writers & Wordsmiths of Santa Barbara: An Open Mic Event with Dr. Shirley Geok-lin Lim” on Thursday, October 20 at 4 pm in the Special Research collections at the UC Santa Barbara Library. Faculty Emerita and acclaimed poet Dr. Shirley Geok-lin Lim will begin the event with a reading of her poems, including select ones from her new book, In Praise of Limes, and will be followed by poets Stephanie Batiste and Swati Rana of the UCSB Department of English, as well as Yatchisin and Yost. Afterwards, the Library invites other poets and authors to share their creative works in an open mic setting. RSVP online.
Lim is an acclaimed poet, novelist, and critic. Born in Malacca, Malaysia, Lim was raised by her Chinese father and attended missionary schools. Although her first languages were Malay and the Hokkin dialect of Chinese, she was able to read English by the time she was six. At 10, her first poem was published in the Malacca Times. She earned her BA from the University of Malaya and her Ph.D. from Brandeis University. Her works include her first book of poetry, Crossing the Peninsula and Other Poems (1980), which was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, and her memoir, Among the White Moon Faces, which won the American Book Award. Her other collections include Ars Poetica for the Day (2015), The Irreversible Sun (2015), Do You Live In? (2015), and Embracing the Angel: Hong Kong Poems (2014).
Lim’s many awards and honors include a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer award, two American Book Awards, and the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States and the Feminist Press Lifetime Achievement Awards. She was a professor of English and chair of the Women's Studies department at UC Santa Barbara, from which she retired in 2012.
Chryss Yost (Education, Ph.D., ’18) is the Community Resource Center Coordinator at Harding University Partnership School. She is also the publisher of Sungold Editions and co-editor of Gunpowder Press. Santa Barbara Poet Laureate from 2013-15, Yost is the author of Mouth & Fruit.
George Yatchisin is the Director of Communications for the Gevirtz School. He is the author of The First Night We Thought the World Would End. With Chryss Yost, he hosts the public affairs program Schooled Radio on KCSB-FM.