Events and Activities

The English Department hosts myriad events and activities that enable our students to develop their love of language, literature, and learning, as well as to share their experiences with the larger community. These include:

• Literary Society

Held three times each year, Literary Society is an evening forum for the discussion of literature, writing, and publishing. Presentations have included readings of memoir and poetry by prize-winning authors, workshops on self-publishing and on the craft of playwriting, and discussions of works of literature, history, film, and popular culture. Literary Society is open to the public and always draws a diverse crowd for lively and thought-provoking conversation.

A sample of recent Literary Society presentations includes:

April 2, 2004:
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, "Random Family: Voices from the Urban Underside"

October 14, 2005:
Joshua Bellin, "InvasioNation: Aliens in American Literature and Film"

March 3, 2006:
Ed Stankowski, "Creative Nonfiction: Risk Taking and the Art of Truth"

September 29, 2006:
Bill Pearce, "So You Want to Be a Playwright?"

March 16, 2007:
Deborah Acklin, "The War That Made America "

October 19, 2007:
Lisa Balkovec Giguere, "Setting It Straight: Spreading Tolerance in Teens"

February 8, 2008:
Douglas Rice, "Writing Memoir"

• Sigma Tau Delta

Sigma Tau Delta, the international English Honors society, has been a presence on the La Roche campus for 15 years. Members of Sigma Tau Delta support the interests and activities of the English Department by sponsoring readings, helping with Literary Society events, and tutoring in the Writers' Center . Members also attend off-campus literary events and hold fundraisers to support the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council
[http://www.gplc.org ]. Membership in Sigma Tau Delta is open to English majors with a minimum GPA of 3.0 who have completed three semesters of college study, at least one of them at La Roche College.

• Twilight Talk

Sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta, Twilight Talk is an evening of "open-mike" readings, usually held during each spring semester, in which members of the La Roche community read their fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction to an interested and appreciative audience.

• African-American Read-In

To honor African-American History Month, the English Department, in conjunction with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) [ http://www.ncte.org ], hosts a reading of poetry, prose, and drama by African-American authors each February. Recently, we highlighted the works of the late August Wilson, Pittsburgh-born playwright and author of a celebrated play cycle that traces the African-American experience through each decade of the twentieth century.