OGDEN — A Nobel Prize-winning poet will be in Ogden later in the week as part of the National Undergraduate Literature Conference at Weber State University.

Louise Glück, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize for literature, will offer an onstage interview on Thursday and a reading on Friday, both on the Weber State campus. She’ll also offer the keynote address at the literature conference banquet Thursday evening.

“This event makes a great impact on our community, especially to have a Nobel Prize winner visiting us here in Ogden,” said Sarah Vause, co-director of the conference, now in its 38th year.

The conference has drawn many big names in literature to Ogden over the years, including Ray Bradbury, Norman Mailer and others. Glück will be “among very few Nobel laureates to come to WSU or Ogden,” Vause said.

The conference, which goes from Thursday to Saturday, is expected to draw more than 100 undergraduates from colleges across the country, who will be presenting their own works. Here are the scheduled appearances of Glück:

• Starting at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in Elizabeth Hall, room 229, she’ll be interviewed by Laura Stott, a Weber State professor in creative writing. It is free and open to the public.
• The banquet Thursday will be at the large banquet room at Timbermine steakhouse, 1701 Park Blvd. in Ogden, from 5:30-8 p.m. Nonconference participants will have to pay $30 to attend and they may register by contacting Chad Holbrook at chadholbrook@weber.edu.
• Glück’s reading on Friday will also be in room 229 in Elizabeth Hall starting at 10:30 a.m. She’ll take questions from the audience, and that event, too, is free and open to the public.

Glück, now living in San Francisco, won the Nobel Prize in 2020 “for her unmistakable poetic voice that, with austere beauty, makes individual existence universal,” reads the Nobel website. She’s won many other awards, authored numerous poetry collections and served as the U.S. poet laureate in 2003-2004, according to the Library of Congress.

The conference, Vause said, is the longest-running undergraduate conference “and one of the only ones that hosts undergraduates and their work.”

Newsletter