The English Department will be holding open forums for students and faculty this week to meet candidates for a creative writing teaching position within the department.

A forum was held Friday for one of the candidates, Jennine Capo Crucet, to share her work and teaching strategy to an audience.

Crucet, a professor at Florida State University and winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Prize and John Gardner Book Award, opened the forum with a passage from her upcoming book, Make Your Home Amongst Strangers.

“In my writing I try to give a voice to the voiceless,” Crucet said. “I think identity and place are very important for a characters sense of self in the world.”

Crucet is among two other candidates interested in a creative writing position at CSU, who will also hold open forums this week.

Associate Professor of English Matthew Cooperman described open forums as a regular part of the English Departments jobs search.

“Their point is to allow the full range of people potentially affected by the hire to come and hear the candidates,” Cooperman said.

Open forums for the other two candidates will be held Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. and Thursday at 10 a.m. in Lory 304.

Collegian Reporter Kendall Krautsack can be reached at news@collegian.com.