Mary Karr

October 8, 2015 - 7:16am
New York Times best-selling author talks life, writing, and the everyday struggles of being human.

After losing her mother to cancer, leaving college and dabbling in drugs and promiscuity, Cheryl Strayed took a hike. At 22, she didn’t know that hiking the Pacific Crest Trail would change her life forever and ultimately help reveal her true identity as a writer.

May 11, 2015 - 4:11am
Award-winning poet Mary Karr and others aim to inspire more than 6,000 SU and SUNY-ESF graduates, their families and supporters on Sunday.

The excitement on the faces of graduating students and their families is pervasive, giving a colorful, vibrant buzz to the Carrier Dome this Commencement Sunday.

Doting mothers run around with coffee cups, fathers snap last-minute photos before their graduates run off to their procession, and children grin bashful smiles, anxious for the ceremony to begin. Graduates can be spotted all over campus up until 9 a.m., when they must be in their places at the Dome, huddled and bouncing with a healthy mixture of joy and nervousness.

April 17, 2015 - 9:03am
Mary Karr, an award-winning poet and memoirist, will deliver the commencement address for the SU and SUNY-ESF commencement May 10.

University officials announced Friday that award-winning poet and memoirist Mary Karr will speak at the 2015 commencement ceremony on May 10.

Karr, the Jesse Truesdell Peck professor of Literature in the SU College of Arts and Sciences, will give the address at the joint SU and SUNY-ESF 161st ceremony in the Carrier Dome. She will also receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.