This March, Lone Star College-CyFair’s Open Dialogue 2019 is titled “Trauma, the Environment, Poetry, and the Narrative Act: An Open Dialogue with Martha Serpas.”

Open Dialogue is an annual spring speaker and panel event that engages in an issue of significance through the study of an author’s work and interaction with the author in both college and community settings, said Dr. Roberta Short, committee chair. Students determine the focus of the annual event and participate in discussions that are intellectually challenging and controversial.

“This spring poet Martha Serpas joins us to share how narrative and poetry is used as a means of witnessing, documenting, and processing trauma, challenges, illness or disaster on a personal or community level,” said Dr. Short.

A native of south Louisiana, Serpas is a published poet, environmentalist, hospital chaplain and a faculty member in the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Her service at Tampa General Hospital and active involvement in efforts of restoring Louisiana’s wetlands are reflected in her work and provide unique insight into the fragility of humans and devastation of erosion and storms impacting landscape.

Serpas’s poems have been included in The New Yorker and her essays on Cajun culture and environment have appeared in The New York Times. She has also co-produced a documentary on Louisiana’s land loss, entitled Veins in the Gulf.

This Open Dialogue 2019 event, set March 26, offers LSC-CyFair students and employees, as well as area community members, an opportunity to meet with Serpas and discuss her work including “The Diener”, “The Dirty Side of the Storm” and “Cote Blanche.”

The day of Open Dialogue with Serpas begins at 10 a.m. at interdisciplinary panel discussions with faculty and students in the Conference Center and concludes with a 7 p.m. reading of her works and participation in a Q&A in the Main Stage Theatre

All are welcome to join a sale and signing of her books following the evening event, located in the Center for the Arts at 9191 Barker Cypress.

For event information, email Roberta.H.Short@LoneStar.edu or go to LoneStar.edu/cyfair.