Ruth Awad, Lebanese-American poet.

Lebanese-American poet Ruth Awad will be Ohio Northern University鈥檚 English Reading Series鈥 first spring semester guest. Her free, public reading will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 15 in the Wilson Center Elzay Gallery of Art.

Awad is a 2021 NEA Poetry fellow; the author of 鈥淪et to Music: A Wildfire鈥 (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2017); and winner of the 2016 Michael Waters Poetry Prize and the 2018 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. Alongside Rachel Mennies, she is the co-editor of 鈥淭he Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry鈥 (Sundress Publications, 2020). She is the recipient of a 2020 and 2016 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and she won the 2013 and 2012 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize and the 2011 Copper Nickel Poetry Contest.

Awad鈥檚 work appears in 鈥淧oetry,鈥 鈥淧oem-a-Day,鈥 鈥淭he Believer,鈥 鈥淭he New Republic,鈥 鈥淧leiades,鈥 鈥淭he Missouri Review,鈥 鈥淭he Rumpus鈥 and elsewhere.

She has an MFA in poetry from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and she lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio.

Awad鈥檚 reading will be followed by a question-and-answer session and book signing. The event is supported with a generous gift from Phil Oleson, PSPh 鈥66, and Mary (Monstwil) Oleson, BSPh 鈥70.