Author events at the campus bookstore this month will feature two faculty members, while the UC Davis-affiliated Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer, or TANA, announced a reading by Tim Z. Hernandez and Michael Luis Medrano.

The arboretum is presenting graduate student Amy Champ in Poetry in the Garden, and the University Writing Program is hosting a conversation with Pat Pattison, who teaches lyric writing and poetry at the Berklee College of Music.

Other upcoming literary events include Young Writers Camps, presented by California's Area 3 Writing Program, based in the School of Education; and "Know Your Writes," a poetry summit and slam, hosted by the the School of Education's Sacramento Area Youth Speak, or SAYS, program.

Young Writers Camps — “This is a great program for UC Davis staff members' children who love to write,” said Karen Smith, director of the Area 3 Writing Program, in welcoming applications for the 2011 camps, most of which will take place on the Davis campus. Other camps will be held at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento.

Three kinds of camps are offered:

• Young Writers Camp, for students entering grades 3-12 — The camp includes daily writing workshops, journaling, direct instruction on specific writing styles and genres, and activities and projects that encourage creativity.
• Writing Strategies Camp, for students entering grades 6-8 — Designed for students who enjoy school and want a boost with their basic writing skills. The camp includes daily writing workshops, activities to develop higher-level vocabulary, and direct instruction to improve sentence, paragraph and essay structure.
• Writing the Personal Statement, for students entering grades 11-12 — Focusing on the essay required for college admission. A follow-up Saturday in the fall is included so the students can finish their essays before college admission deadlines.

Tuition: $250 for 10-day camps at UC Davis, $150 for five-day camps at UC Davis or Cosumnes River College, or $150 for the five-day Writing the Personal Statement camp at UC Davis. Registration and more information.

Author events at the bookstore — Rose Middleton and Gregory Dobbins are scheduled to give talks, answer questions and sign books, in the lounge at the bookstore in the Memorial Union. The events are free and open to the public.

• Rose Middleton, assistant professor of Native American studies — Trust in the Land: New Directions in Tribal Conservation, in which the author examines new and innovative ideas regarding native land conservancies, and provides advice on land trusts, collaborations and conservation groups. Noon-1 p.m. Tuesday, May 10.

• Gregory Dobbins, associate professor of English — Lazy Idle Schemers: Irish Modernism and the Cultural Politics of Idleness, in which the author contends that the representation of what exactly the intellectual does, or rather, what exactly the intellectual does not do, became a preoccupation within the line of Irish modernist novels initiated by the publication of Ulysses. Noon-1 p.m. Wednesday, May 18.

Poetry in the Garden — With Amy Champ, a graduate student of performance studies at UC Davis, a filmmaker, and a teacher of yoga and meditation, as well as a poet. Her research and writing deal with yoga studies, women’s sacred arts, ritual performance and transnational feminism. Noon-1 p.m. Thursday, May 12, Wyatt Deck, in the arboretum. (In the event of rain, this program will be moved to the Foster Room, 1138 Meyer Hall.)

Conversations with Writers: Pat Pattison — Professor Pattison is the author of the groundbreaking book, Writing Better Lyrics, now in its second edition, a mntor to such Grammy Award-winning artists as John Mayer and Gillian Welch. Pattison's other books: The Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure, The Essential Guide to Rhyming and the forthcoming Songwriting Without Boundaries. Pattison has developed three online lyric-writing courses as well as a new poetry course, available through the Berklee College of Music. The Pattison conversation is scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, May 12, in 126 Voorhies Hall. For more information, contact Karma Waltonen, UWP lecturer, (530) 902-3446 or kjwaltonen@ucdavis.edu.

TANA reading — “The TANA Literary Series complements TANA’s mission to bring all forms of the creative arts to the greater Woodland community,” said Carlos Francisco Jackson, TANA director and assistant professor of Chicana/o studies.

The Department of Chicana/o Studies conceived of TANA and runs it. Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer translates to English as Art Workshops of the New Dawn.

The Hernandez-Medrano reading is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Friday, May 13, at TANA, 1224 Lemen Ave., Woodland.

Hernandez’s debut book of poetry, Skin Tax, received an American Book Award in 2006. Last year he came out with his first novel, Breathing, In Dust, which garnered a rave review in the San Francisco Chronicle. He the recipient of 2011 Premio Aztlan Literary Prize, given by the National Hispanic Cultural center and presented at the National Latino Writers Conference

Medrano is the author of the highly praised poetry collection, Born in the Cavity of Sunsets (2009). His poems and flash-fictions have appeared in numerous literary journals, including North American Review, Cortland Review, Rattle, Bombay Gin, Askew and The Bilingual Review. He teaches English at Fresno City College.

"Know Your Writes" — The organizers said this dayliong event, Friday, May 13, is expected to bring more than 900 of the region's best young poets, rappers
and singers to Freeborn Hall.

The program is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. with a student town hall meeting and workshops on writing, social justice and youth empowerment. The poetry slam is set to begin at 6 p.m.

The organizers said the participants emerged from semifinal competitions held in April at high schools and community centers throughout the Sacramento area.

The top six poets from the "Know Your Writes" finals will be invited to represent the Sacramento region at Brave New Voices, an international youth poetry slam to be held in San Francisco in July.

This year's SAYS summit is the third annual, and culminates a year of programming in which youths from different communities and economic and ethnic backgrounds come together to learn and celebrate their accomplishments. Students also develop plans for school improvement and community change.

Tickets for the slam finals are $5 for ages 10 and under, $7 for ages 11-21, and $15 for all others, and are available at the Freeborn Hall box office, (530) 752-1915, and online. Box office hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday.

The organizers said a limited number of seats for the daytime summit will be available to schools.

More information is available online, or by contacting Vajra Watson, (530) 370-2889 or vmwatson@ucdavis.edu.