Wendy Barker
Gemini Ink honors Wendy Barker for literary excellence
(Sept. 6, 2002)--Wendy Barker, UTSA professor of English, classics and philosophy, will receive the Gemini Ink Award for Literary Excellence Sept. 8 at Inkstravaganza, the organization's sixth annual literary gala and fund-raiser. The award honors a San Antonio writer who exhibits exceptional quality in his or her body of work and has made a strong commitment to serving the community. Past recipients are Naomi Shihab Nye in 2001 and Rosemary Catacalos in 2000.
"Those of us in the department learned with much pleasure of the selection of Wendy Barker for this important and prestigious award," said Linda Woodson, chair of the Department of English, Classics, and Philosophy.
She added, "This honor, given by a nationally recognized panel of judges, demonstrates the sustained level of excellence of Dr. Barker's creative achievement. It also marks her outstanding and selfless contributions to the writing community of San Antonio through her remarkable teaching here at UTSA and her encouragement of writers throughout the region."
Barker received her B.A. and M.A. from Arizona State University and her Ph.D. from the University of California at Davis. She taught at the University of California at Davis and at Arizona State University before coming to UTSA, where she teaches creative writing (poetry), American literature, modern and contemporary poetry, literature by women and feminist theory.
She has published four collections of poetry including "Way of Whiteness," which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her most recent work is "Poems' Progress," a collection of autobiographical essays about the process of writing.
Among her honors and awards are five Faculty Research Awards from UTSA (1983, 1988, 1993, 1995, 1997) and the Distinguished Citizen Award from the City of the San Antonio (1991), The Arts and Letters Award from the Friends of the San Antonio Library (1991), the President's Distinguished Achievement Award for Creative Production (1997), the President's Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching Excellence (1992) and election to the Texas Institute of Letters (1990).
She was recently named as one of 100 Texas Writers featured in the Texas Writers Project sponsored by the Texas Council for the Humanities. During Fall 2000, she served as a Fulbright Lecturer at St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia in Bulgaria.
Much of Barker's poetry celebrates her extensive travels, particularly the land, food and people of Italy. The 2002 Inkstravaganza combines Barker's evocative images of Italy with San Antonio's premiere Italian dining experience at Paesano's on the River Walk.
Gemini Ink, San Antonio's only independent literary center, celebrates art in literature by offering university- and master-level classes, reader's theater and Writers in Communities presentations that bring literature and literacy to disadvantaged groups. Gemini Ink won the 2002 Downtown Alliance Award for Best Arts and Cultural Program and was featured in the New York Times in July.
The Gemini Ink Inkstravaganza will be at 6 p.m. Sept. 8 at Paesano's on
the River Walk. Admission is $75 per person. For more information, call Gemini
Ink at (210) 734-9673.
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Gemini Ink honors Wendy Barker for literary excellence
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© The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2002