Janet McAdams read from her poetry and fiction at Sheppard Memorial Library on the 14th of November for the third installment of the Writer's Reading Series here at East Carolina University.  Nearly 60 people, professors and students, attended the reading.  McAdams was supposed to be joined by Karen Woods, who serves on the Tribal Council of the Monacan Indian Nation and was a finalist for the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship in 2000, but, unfortunately, Woods was unable to attend.  To honor her friend, McAdams read two of Woods's poems, "Markings on Earth" and "Sight of a Massacre," to begin the reading.

Janet McAdams then read two poems from her book, The Island of Lost Luggage, published by the University of Arizona Press (2000).  The first poem she read was "El Salvador Del Mundo," which is the full name of the nation of El Salvador and translates as "the savior of the world."  Her reading of the poem gave the audience a wonderful image of an evening in an un-named city in El Salvador.  The second poem, "The Monster of Childhood," was recognized in the 14th edition of The Yearís Best Fantasy and Horror published by St. Martin's Press.

Dr. McAdams continued with several unpublished poems including "A Natural History of Hands" and "Twin Disappearing."  These poems were well received, and the story behind the writing of "Twin Disappearing" gave the audience quite a shiver.  The premise behind that particular poem is that many more twins are conceived than people realize, but that, often, one twin absorbs the other in the womb.  This phenomenon can lead to all sorts of defects, including a story Dr. McAdams related about a man who went to have a tumor removed from his brain, only to have the doctors discover that it was not a tumor, but an unborn fetus, his twin, residing there in his head, and this caused the audience to squirm in their seats thinking that they might have absorbed a twin themselves and that the twin could very well be contained within.

Once the audience recovered from the fright of having another human inhabiting their bodies, they were treated to a short reading from an unpublished book Dr. McAdams had recently finished entitled, Red Weather.  The story is a fictionalized account of her travels in Central America, and the chapter she read was entitled "Shifting Ground."  This chapter dealt with the aftermath of an earthquake in El Salvador.  It was quite touching and wonderfully detailed.  One could sense the devastating effect the earthquake had on the fictional community.  Some members of the audience were more appreciative of Dr. McAdams's poetry, but the selection from her novel was also well received.  This was the last piece read on the evening, and after a short Q&A session, Dr. McAdams was besieged by fans with requests for autographs for the books they had purchased.  She graciously obliged them, and the evening came to a close.

Dr. McAdams was born in Alabama and received her undergraduate degree and M.A. from the University of Alabama, and her Ph.D. from Emory University. She is an Assistant Professor of English (Native American Studies and Women Studies) at the University of Oklahoma.  She is also currently the Robert P. Hubbard Professor of Poetry at Kenyon College.  Her awards include the Native Authors First Book Award and the American Book Award.