Oakton's April 11 Chicago Writers Series features noted poet

Join award-winning poet Naoko Fujimoto as she reads selections from her works at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 11, at the Student Center at Oakton Community College’s Des Plaines campus, 1600 E. Golf Road. Admission to this Chicago Writers Series event is free and open to the public.

Born and raised in Nagoya, Japan, Fujimoto is the writer of the forthcoming collection of poetry “Mother Said, I Want Your Pain,” winner of the Shared Dream Immigrant Contest by Backbone Press. Her first chapbook, “Home, No Home” won the annual Oro Fino Poetry Chapbook Competition by Educe Press in 2016. Fujimoto also is the author of several works of poetry including “Silver Seasons of Heartache.”

“The Chicago Writers Series has been extremely successful in bringing noted authors and poets to campus for readings and discussions,” Donovan Braud, Ph.D., chair of Oakton’s English department, says. “Our goal is to get diverse speakers from a cross section of literary styles and genres. This upcoming event features a Japanese poet who writes in English and completed her education at Indiana University South Bend.”

Funded by the Oakton Educational Foundation and student activity fees, the Chicago Writers Series attracts award-winning fiction and nonfiction writers and poets to Oakton to perform, engage and educate. Oakton’s connection to native Chicago authors, as well as those who have called Chicago “home,” allows the community to access diverse, inspiring and relevant authors in a space outside the traditional classroom.

For more information, contact Braud at 847-376-7026 or dbraud@oakton.edu.