UMSL alumni Kelli Allen and Michael Nye will make their return to the university for a reading at Gallery 210.

Alumni Kelli Allen, BA English 2008 and MFA 2011 (with an emphasis in poetry), and Michael Nye, MFA 2006 (with an emphasis in fiction), will make their return to the University of Missouri—St. Louis. But this time they do so as two published authors reading for the community from which they grew.

On Thursday Sept. 26 Allen and Nye will be reading at Gallery 210 on UMSL’s North Campus. They will be joined by their former teachers John Dalton, director of the MFA in Creative Writing program, and Mary Troy, professor of English.

The reading will begin at 7 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Parking is available on the lower level of the Millennium Student Center Garage North.

Allen’s poetry has been called inviting and distant, muscular and precious. Her debut collection, “Otherwise, Soft White Ash,” published by John Gosslee Books (October 2012), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Pulitzer Prize.

“These poems are full of the dark and wonderful complexities of life,” said Glenn Irwin, assistant teaching professor at UMSL, for Fjords Review.

Nye’s debut short story collection, “Strategies Against Extinction,” published by Queen’s Ferry Press (October 2012), is a compilation of nine stories about people in critical moments of their lives. A vascular surgeon, a film projectionist and a second-generation comic book store owner are just three characters of many.

“[Nye] delicately speculates on the order and patterns his characters weave in the havoc of their lives, but he never rushes the process,” says Laura Struab, reviewer for Paste Magazine.

For additional information about the reading contact Mary Troy at marytroy@umsl.edu or 314-516-6845.