Hello everyone, good evening and welcome. Im the director of the Creative Writing Program and we are so happy to welcome our friend for over 15 years weve been honored to host the awards ceremony in this auditorium ended this year from the Creative Writing Program the finalists in the series of interviews can you hear me . Okay. On our blog and on the website and book critics. Org. We will be doing these over a twoweek period and its one that couldnt have been done without the interviewers and editors and publicists. Thank you also to the Board Members. And a huge thank you to the rest of the board. I wonder if we can give a round of applause to the board . [applause] they may mention this also, but it is entirely volunteer. The whole enterprise is a volunteer job, and it is preaching to the choir but we need to remember to call congresspeople and senators after they approved the elimination. [applause] we can also mention other things we might like to have happen. We would like to kee