2025 Fall Sczepaniak Lecture
Illinois Poet Laureate, Mark Turcotte

Thursday, November 6th
2 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.
University Dining Room


Join us as we welcome the newly named 6th Illinois Poet Laureate, Mark Turcotte, Senior Lecturer and Distinguished Writer-In-Residence at DePaul University. Writer, Mark Turcotte (Turtle Mountain Band Anishinaabe) spent his earliest years on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and in the migrant camps of the western United States. Later, he grew up in and around Lansing, Michigan. Arriving in Chicago in the spring of 1993, Turcotte rediscovered his love of words and writing and quickly established himself as a unique voice in the city’s thriving poetry scene. That summer he was the winner of the first Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award. Turcotte is author of The Feathered Heart; Songs of Our Ancestors; a chapbook, Road Noise; A Bilingual Collection, Le Chant de la Route, and Exploding Chippewas (Northwestern Univ Press).
His work has appeared in many national and international literary journals and is included in the new and first ever Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. Turcotte was the recipient of a 2001-2002 Lannan Foundation Literary Completion Grant. In 2008 he completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Western Michigan University. After graduation he served as the 2008-2009 Visiting Native Writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He lives in Chicago and, since 2009, has been Senior Lecturer and Distinguished-Writer-In-Residence in the English Department at DePaul University.
Mark will be presenting a poetry reading followed by a Q&A session.

Please register below.
Questions? Please contact Skylar Van Mill at (815)836-5148 or svanmill@lewisu.edu

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Thursday November 6
2:00 PM - 3:45 PM
Poetry reading by Illinois Poet Laureate, Mark Turcotte, with Q & A session afterward | November 6, 2025 | 2 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. | University Dining Room | Free event but registration is required.
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The legacy of Jim and Mary Clare Sczepaniak lives on through scholarships, Lewis University enhancements, and now, the James P. ’60 and Mary C. Sczepaniak Lecture Series presented by the Lewis University History Department. Visit www.alumni.lewisu.edu/Sczepaniak for more information about Jim Sczepaniak. The James P. ’60 and Mary C. Sczepaniak Lecture Series is being presented as a part of Lewis University’s Arts & Ideas Program, providing cultural and educational programming for students and the community. A portion of Arts & Ideas events is sponsored by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. Contact artsandideas@lewisu.edu for further information.