La Voz

Media Credit: Laena Brandenburg

Maxine Hong Kingston read poetry from her new book, "Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace on Wednesday," Nov. 29 at 6 p.m. at the Writing and Reading Center.

In 1991, Maxine's house burned down in a massive fire and the only copy of her current writing project, "The Fourth Book of Peace" was destroyed. After the fire, and as President Bush was ordering the invasion of Iraq, she decided to write about peace, but this time from a new perspective.

At this time, she also began offering writing and meditation workshops for veterans, to help them give voice to their experiences and work toward personal peace. As she expected, these workshops helped renew and heal not only the veterans, but also Maxine. She draws on her experiences from these workshops for her new book.

Maxine and other writers whose poetry is featured in the book read samples of their work. Among them were Nancy Sue Brink, Sean McLain Brown, Ron Greenberg, Bob Jost, Jane Lott, Maureen Nerli, Joanne Palamountain, Barbara Sonneborn, and John Swensson.

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