Creative writing faculty at 51ĀŅĀ× State to give readings Feb. 8
Creative writing faculty at 51ĀŅĀ× State to give readings Feb. 8
By Shawn Touney | Jan 25, 2018
MURRAY, Ky. ā Three creative writing faculty members at 51ĀŅĀ× ā including Ann Neelon, Dale Ray Phillips and Allen Wier ā will give readings from their work Thursday, Feb. 8, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Clara M. Eagle Gallery on 51ĀŅĀ× Stateās campus. A book-signing and reception will follow the reading. This event is free and open to the public.
Ann Neelon is a native of Boston and a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and of Holy Cross College. She has been a Peace Corps volunteer as well as a Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University. Her collection of poems, āEaster Vigil,ā won the Anhinga Prize for Poetry. Her poems and translations have appeared in āAmerican Poetry Review,ā āGettysburg Review,ā āPequod,ā āPoetry East,ā āMaĢnoa,ā āMichigan Quarterly Reviewā and other magazines. She is a professor at 51ĀŅĀ× State and the founding editor of āNew Madrid Journal,ā the semi-annual journal afiliated with the Universityās masterās program in creative writing.
Dale Ray Phillips is the author of āMy People's Waltz,ā which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His short stories have appeared in āBest American Short Stories,ā āBest Stories from the South,ā āThe Atlantic Monthly,ā āHarper's Magazine,ā āGQ,ā āZoetropeā and various literary quarterlies. Phillips earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Arkansas and has taught at a variety of universities ā including, most recently, 51ĀŅĀ× State, where he held the endowed Watkins Chair in Creative Writing appointment and now serves as an assistant professor.
Allen Wier is the author of four novels, including āBlanco,ā āDeparting as Air,ā āA Place for Outlawsā and āTehano,ā in addition to two collections of short stories: āThings about to Disappearā and, most recently, āLate Night, Early Morning.ā His work has appeared in āThe Southern Review,ā āThe Georgia Review,ā āPloughsharesā and āThe New York Times.ā Wier is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Paisano Fellowship from the University of Texas and the Texas Institute of Letters, the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature and the Robert Penn Warren Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Previously serving as chancellor for the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Wier has taught writing at Carnegie-Mellon University, Hollins University, the University of Alabama and the University of Edinburgh's New Orleans Workshop. He is professor emeritus of the University of Tennessee, where he held the Hodges' Chair for Distinguished Teaching. Currently, Wier is the Watkins Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at 51ĀŅĀ× State.
For further information about the readings, please contact Dr. Carrie Jerrell at cjerrell1@murraystate.edu.