Category Archive for Writers in the Library
February 26, 2008
Michael Knight to Read at Writers in the Library, March 10
Michael Knight, UT associate professor of creative writing, will read from his recently published book, The Holiday Season, at the March 10th Writers in the Library event.
In the first of two novellas comprising The Holiday Season, a father and two adult sons struggle through the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays to redefine their relationships after the death of the wife and mother who bound them together. The second novella, set during one New Year's Eve, "is packed with people brought into uncomfortable proximity on a night traditionally given over to optimism." [New York Times Book Review].
Earlier books by Michael Knight include Divining Rod, a novel, and two collections of stories, Goodnight, Nobody and Dogfight and Other Stories.
Knight sets his narratives in his native Alabama -- and to good advantage. "Nobody writes about the contemporary Southern upper middle class as well as Michael Knight," according to the Mobile Register. "Knight's writing [is] understated, graceful, easy. At the same time, he is no stranger to the Southern Gothic tradition, which is to say he peoples his novel with characters whose eccentricities, at once comic and sad, are accepted and everyday," says the Washington Post Book World. And the New York Times Book Review allows: "For all its dark insight into human entanglements, Knight's fiction also contained surprising jolts of humor."
Join Writers in the Library at 7 pm, Monday, March 10, in the UT Hodges Library auditorium to experience Michael Knight's own Southern blend of realism and humor.
Posted by Martha Rudolph at 12:00 AM in Events, Writers in the Library
February 11, 2008
Readings by authors Julie Auer & Stephen Dupree, Feb. 25
Writers in the Library continues its spring line-up of authors with readings by local authors Julie Auer and Stephen Dupree on February 25. Readings begin at 7 pm in the Hodges Library auditorium.
Julie Auer is a Knoxville lawyer and freelance writer of fiction and nonfiction. Previously inspired by her work as a public defender to write about crime, her work has appeared in several regional anthologies including the 2004 literary edition Knoxville Bound.
Apart from crime, her published work ranges from social justice commentary for the Hellbender Press to a monthly humor column for the Knoxville Voice. She is currently at work on a book project about the 1934 Stonega Company coal mining disaster in Derby, Virginia.
Stephen Dupree is a lifelong Knoxvillian with generous and varied exposure to the world. Military, acting, and technical employment have sent him into many corners of Europe and the U.S. and allowed him the opportunity to explore some of the corners of his mind. Observations, questions, and conclusions all appear in his writings. Whether by accident or effort, he tends to look at things from a slightly different angle than the "norm." Nothing is off limits and humor can be found in anything, are his guidelines. He has been a contributing columnist to Knoxville's Metro Pulse.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Martha Rudolph at 09:00 PM in Events, Writers in the Library
February 03, 2008
Feb. 11 Reading by MariJo Moore, author who draws on her Cherokee heritage
Author MariJo Moore will read at Writers in the Library on Monday, February 11, at 7 pm in the Hodges Library auditorium.
Moore wears several literary hats -- author, editor, publisher. A North Carolina resident of Cherokee, Irish and Dutch ancestry, she channels the voices of her Native American ancestors through several genres -- fiction, essays, poetry.
She has published collections of Native American tales, an award-winning collection of her own short stories with a focus on Cherokee women (Red Woman with Backward Eyes and Other Stories), and her first novel (The Diamond Doorknob).
The most recent collection of her poetry is Confessions of a Madwoman. Her earlier Spirit Voices of Bones includes one poem that is translated into eleven different native languages.
Moore has edited several anthologies of essays by and about Native Americans, including Eating Fire, Tasting Blood: Breaking the Great Silence of the American Indian Holocaust and Genocide of the Mind: An Anthology of Native American Writing. Eating Fire, Tasting Blood includes essays with such poignant titles as "Manifest Destiny: Greed Disguised as God" and "A Flood of Tears and Blood: And Yet the Pope Said Indians Had Souls."
Moore was chosen as Wordcrafter of the Year (2003-2004) by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. She was honored with the prestigious award of North Carolina's Distinguished Woman of the Year in the Arts in 1998, and chosen by Native Peoples magazine as one of the top five American Indian writers of the new century (June/July 2000 issue). Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers chose her as creative prose fiction Writer of the Year in 2002 for her book Red Woman with Backward Eyes and Other Stories. She is founder of rENEGADE pLANETS pUBLISHING, which was chosen as Publisher of the Year by Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers in 2001.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
--
Granddaddy stood five feet four inches and was slight of stature. "Paper-sack brown" was how my family described his coloring. Shiny, crow-black hair and eyes, he called himself a "full-blooded Cherokee." Many times people mistook him for one of the Mexicans who came to the rich bottomlands of western Tennessee every fall to pick cotton. He never bothered to correct them.
When I was growing up in the fifties, it wasn't as acceptable to be American Indian as it is now. There was no Dances With Wolves over which non-Indians romanticized. No rebellious young people totally distraught over the Vietnam War, looking for answers to society's ills through spiritual teachings...
--from "Everyone Needs Someone" by MariJo Moore, in Genocide of the Mind: An Anthology of Native American Writing
Posted by Martha Rudolph at 08:00 AM in Events, Writers in the Library
January 23, 2008
John McManus at Writers in the Library, Jan. 28
John McManus, visiting writer in the UT Creative Writing Program this spring, will read at Writers in the Library, Monday, January 28, 7 pm, in the Hodges Library auditorium.
John McManus is the author of a novel, Bitter Milk, and two collections of short fiction, Born on a Train and Stop Breakin Down, which made him, at 22, the youngest ever recipient of the Whiting Award. His stories have appeared in places like Oxford American, Tin House and Ploughshares. He was born and raised in Blount County and currently teaches in the MFA Program at Goddard College.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Martha Rudolph at 11:21 AM in Events, Writers in the Library
January 10, 2008
Scott Miller opens spring UT Writers in the Library series
Singer and songwriter Scott Miller opens the spring semester slate of Writers in the Library at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, on January 14.
Writers in the Library is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program in the UT Department of English. The series brings various writers to campus throughout the year to read from their work.
Writers in the Library began in 1999 and is managed by the UT Libraries Jack E. Reese Writer-in-Residence. The current Writer-in-Residence is RB Morris, a singer, songwriter and poet from Knoxville. This is his last semester in the position.
"The position of Jack E. Reese Writer-in-Residence has been a tremendous honor for me and has allowed me to come in contact with a lot of great writers," Morris said.
The following is the spring schedule for Writers in the Library. All events begin at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium in Hodges Library.
* Jan. 14 - Scott Miller
* Jan. 28 - John McManus
* Feb. 11 - MariJo Moore
* Feb. 25 - Julie Auer and Steven Dupree
* March 10 - Michael Knight
* March 24 - Linda P. Marion and Judy Loest
* April 14 - student recipients of the John C. Hodges Graduate Writing Prizes in fiction and poetry
* April 21 - group reading; writers to be announced later
Miller fronts the Knoxville band Scott Miller and the Commonwealth. The group's latest album "Reconstruction" was recorded live in Johnson City and released in 2007. For more information, visit http://www.thescottmiller.com/.
"One of things I've tried to add to the mix is the tradition of songwriters as poets, which I believe is prevalent if not dominant part of the current 'poetic voice' in our culture," Morris said. "Along those lines we are starting the series off this spring with Scott Miller, a local songwriter with a growing international following."
McManus, who is a visiting writer at UT this spring, is author of the novel "Bitter Milk." In 2000, he was presented the Whiting Writers Award for fiction.
Moore's published works include "Spirit Voices of Bones," "The Diamond Doorknob" and "Feeding the Ancient Fires: A Collection of Writings by North Carolina American Indians." For more information, visit http://www.marijomoore.com/.
Julie Auer, a member of the Knoxville Writers' Guild, is a lawyer by profession and uses her insight to write about crime and punishment. Steven Dupree is a local actor and journalist.
Michael Knight, UT associate professor of creative writing, recently had a new novel published. "The Holiday Season" is a book of two novellas set during the holidays.
Judy Loest and Linda Parsons Marion are both prize-winning poets. Linda Marion is poetry editor of "Now & Then" magazine.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Martha Rudolph at 11:11 AM in Events, Writers in the Library
November 19, 2007
Writers in the Library: David Philips, December 3
Poet, songwriter, and musician David Philips has deep roots in Knoxville and East Tennessee. He has been entertaining local audiences since the late 1970s, sometimes with a band of friends dubbed The Selective Memories, with music, poetry, and performance art.
Philips was in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, ground zero, when Katrina hit on August 29, 2005. A featured piece that he will read is about Katrina and its aftermath.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 09:11 PM in Writers in the Library
November 14, 2007
Writers in the Library: Jack the Healing Cat, November 19
The author, illustrator and publisher of the new children's book Jack the Healing Cat will discuss the creative process of book publishing at Writers in the Library on Monday, November 19 at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library. The event is free and open to the public.
Jack the Healing Cat tells the story of a cat who moves in with the family of a little girl facing health issues. Jack helps the girl through some tough times and becomes a member of the family. The story is based on true events
Jack the Healing Cat was written by Marilyn Kallet, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee and illustrated by Sandra Van Winkle. The book was published with the assistance of editor Beto Cumming of Iris Press.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 02:29 PM in Writers in the Library
October 28, 2007
Writers in the Library: RB Morris, November 12
Writers in the Library presents RB Morris, the University of Tennessee Libraries Jack E. Reese writer in residence on Monday, November 12 at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library. The event is free and open to the public.
Morris will read his essay from The Naked Lunch at 50, an anthology published in honor of the 50th anniversary of William S. Burrough's seminal work.
The Naked Lunch, first published in Paris in 1959, was extremely controversial in both its subject matter and obscene language. Banned in many regions of the United States, The Naked Lunch was the last major literary censorship battle in the U.S. court system, wherein the Appeals Court of Massachusetts found that the book did not violate obscenity statues.
The Naked Lunch is a satire and social criticism of America's consumerist post World War II society. The book is written in a non-linear, non-chronological style, where Burroughs sliced phrases and words to create new sentences.
The Naked Lunch at 50, edited by Oliver Harris and Ian MacFayden will be published by the Southern Illinois University Press, forthcoming 2009.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 08:51 PM in Writers in the Library
September 26, 2007
Writers in the Library October 29: Michelle Boisseau
Michelle Boisseau to Read Monday, October 29 at 7 pm in the Lindsay Young Auditorium, Hodges Library
Michelle Boisseau is the author of three volumes of poetry, Trembling Air, University of Arkansas Press, Understory, Northeastern University Press, and No Private Life, Vanderbilt University Press, which also won the Morse Prize. Her popular volume Writing Poetry, Longman Press, is going into its 7th edition. She as received an NEA grant
for poetry as well as prizes from the Poetry Society of America.
Michelle Boisseau is professor of English at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, where she coordinates the Creative Writing Program, and serves as associate editor of BkMk Press.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 02:38 PM in Writers in the Library
September 01, 2007
Writers in the Library, October 1: Wendy Brenner
Wendy Brenner to Read Monday, October 1 at 7 pm in the Lindsay Young Auditorium, Hodges Library
Wendy Brenner is the author of the story collections Phone Calls From The Dead and Large Animals In Everyday Life, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award.
Her stories and essays have appeared in Seventeen, Allure, Travel & Leisure, Story, Mississippi Review, and other magazines, and have been anthologized in New Stories From the South and Best American Magazine Writing. She is a contributing writer for Oxford American magazine and teaches in the MFA program at University of North Carolina-Wilmington.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 09:31 AM in Writers in the Library
August 25, 2007
Writers in the Library: Barbara Bogue, September 24
Barbara Bogue presents Writers are Critics Too--James Lee Burke and the Soul of Dave Robicheaux
Poet, author, critic and community activist Barbara Zimmerman Bogue will present Writers are Critics Too: James Lee Burke and the Soul of Dave Robicheaux on Monday, September 24 at 7 pm in the Hodges Library Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
Everyone enjoys a good mystery. At this Writers in the Library event, Bogue will discuss James Lee Burke, one of the best Southern writers of police procedurals, and his brilliantly drawn character, New Iberia, Louisiana police detective, and bait shop proprietor, Dave Robicheaux.
At noon on September 24 Bogue will also present Writing Outside the Margins: Creative Writing and the Community in the University Center Crest Room. Bogue will discuss how she established a unique and lasting partnership between Ball State University and community organizations in Muncie, Indiana. The aim of the program is to encourage community interaction and the creation of dialogue between those who write and those who yearn to have their stories told and published.
Barbara Bogue teaches creative writing at Ball State University, where she founded and directs the annual Creative Writing and the Community Project. She also edits the annual Writing Out of the Margins collection, published by the Ball State University Community Collaborative. Bogue is the author of James Lee Burke and the Soul of Dave Robicheaux (McFarland, 2006). Her fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in Rockhurst Review, New Millennium Writings, Pleiades Kaleidoscope, The Flying Island and Deadly Writer's Patrol, among other publications.
This event is co-sponsored by the Office of Academic Outreach of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Creative Writing Program of the English Department in association with the John C. Hodges Better English Fund, and the Writers in the Library program at the University Libraries.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 01:08 PM in Writers in the Library
July 06, 2007
RB Morris to Continue as Writer in Residence at the UT Libraries
The University of Tennessee Libraries is pleased to announce that Knoxville poet and musician RB Morris will continue as the Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence for the 2007-2008 academic year. 
Morris has served the libraries as writer in residence since 2004. In that time he has worked tirelessly to build the Writers in the Library reading series. The series has featured award-winning poets such as Ted Kooser, Charles Wright, and Yusef Komunyakaa, author and essayist Elizabeth Gilbert, and actor, poet and country rocker Steve Earle, as well as local authors such as Linda Parsons and Jeff Daniel Marion, Marilyn Kallet, Jack Rentfro and Kevin Bradley. The series also hosts readings by UT student authors each year.
The University Libraries writer in residence program began in 1998 as a program to support an emerging author interested in making an effort to write full time. The program was named in honor of former UT Chancellor Jack E. Reese in 2005. Reese, who died in May 2005, was an active supporter of the UT Libraries and the local writing community. Previous writers in residence at the libraries include authors Brian Griffin, Pamela Schoenewaldt and Patricia Waters.
The UT Libraries would also like to announce several Writers in the Library events scheduled for fall 2007:
9/24 Barbara Bogue, author and assistant professor of creative writing at Ball State University
10/1 Wendy Brenner, author and director of the MFA program at University of North Carolina, Wilmington and Kathy Pories, senior editor at Algonquin Books
10/29 Michelle Boisseau, professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and associate editor of the BkMk Press.
Events for November and December will be announced as soon as possible.
All Writers in the Library events are held in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library on the UT Campus. Readings begin at 7 pm and are free and open to the public. Please visit www.lib.utk.edu/writersinthelibrary for more information about upcoming events.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 12:06 PM in Writers in the Library
March 29, 2007
Writers in the Library: Jon Manchip White to read on World Book Day, April 23
April 23 is an important day in literature: in 1616, both William Shakespeare and Miguel Cervantes died on that date. In 1995 the United Nations named April 23 as World Book Day, and throughout the world the day is set aside to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.
To celebrate World Book Day, Writers in the Library will host author and UT emeritus professor of English Jon Manchip White. The reading will begin at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library and is free and open to the public.
Jon Manchip White is a distinguished Welsh-American author who has published over 30 books of fiction and non-fiction. His most recent work is Solo Goya: Goya and the Duchess of Alba at Sanlucar, an historical novel based on the life of the great Spanish painter Francisco Goya. Solo Goya was published in 2007 by Iris Press.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 04:50 PM in Writers in the Library
March 27, 2007
Student Authors to Read at Writers in the Library
Writers in the Library features award-winning creative writing students on April 16
Students in UT's Creative Writing Program compete annually for the John C. Hodges Graduate Writing Prizes in fiction and poetry. This year's award-winning students will read at Writers in the Library at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 16, in the John C. Hodges Library auditorium. The prizes were endowed by the same long-time UT English professor, author of the Harbrace College Handbook, for whom the Hodges Library is named.
Author of Harbrace Handbook made significant contributions to University Libraries, English lit
Dr. John C. Hodges came to UT Knoxville in 1921 and was named head of the English department in 1938, remaining in that position until his retirement in 1962.
His enthusiastic commitment to learning did not end with retirement, however. Three years earlier he had begun the task of improving the university's library collection, and he continued to serve voluntarily as coordinator of library development until his death in 1967.
His 41 years at the University were marked by far-reaching contributions to the study of English literature and the improvement of educational methods. Dr. Hodges' influence on the teaching of English continues today through his Harbrace College Handbook, the most widely used college text in the country.
The current John C. Hodges Main Library, which opened in 1987, was constructed around the John C. Hodges Undergraduate Library built in 1969.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 11:29 AM in Writers in the Library
March 07, 2007
Writers in the Library features musician-poet Keith Flynn
Rocker poet to read March 26
At nearly seven feet tall, Keith Flynn's mere presence commands a room. And with poetry as passionate and energetic as Jerry Lee Lewis's piano playing, his reading at Writers in the Library on March 26th is an event that should not be missed. The reading will begin at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library on the UT campus and is free and open to the public.
Flynn is a poet and former rocker, who performed with the nationally acclaimed band The Crystal Zoo from 1985-1988. He is the founder and managing editor of The Asheville Poetry Review and was twice named the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for North Carolina.
Flynn is the author of five books, including four collections of poetry: The Talking Drum (1991), The Book of Monsters (1994), The Lost Sea (2000), and The Golden Ratio (Iris Press, 2007), and a collection of essays, entitled The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory: How To Make Your Poetry Swing (Writer's Digest Books, 2007). His poems have been published in The Colorado Review, The Southern Poetry Review, and Shenandoah, as well as many other anthologies and journals.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by at 12:54 PM in Writers in the Library
February 22, 2007
Knoxville poets to read at Writers in the Library March 7
Linda and Jeff Daniel Marion will read from their works
Acclaimed Knoxville husband-and-wife poets Jeff Daniel and Linda Marion will read at Writers in the Library on Wednesday, March 7 beginning at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library. The event is free and open to the public.
Jeff Daniel Marion was inducted into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame for poetry, awarded by the Friends of Literacy Inc., and received the 2006 Career Achievement Award from the Knoxville Writers' Guild. He participated in the 25th Literary Festival at Emory & Henry College (Emory, VA), reading and speaking on panels with other well-known Appalachian writers. His most recent essay, "Roads Back Home," appeared in Tennessee Country: In the Land of Their Fathers.
Linda Parsons Marion is poetry editor for Now & Then magazine and the author of Home Fires. She recently won first place in the 2006 Tennessee Writers Alliance and the Libba Moore Gray poetry competitions, and her work was nominated for a 2006 Pushcart Prize. Her poems have appeared widely, including The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Iowa Review, and Prairie Schooner. She has received two literary fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission. Marion is an editor at the University of Tennessee and spends lots of time out in her gardens. She feeds them coffee grounds; they feed her poems.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by at 12:20 PM in Writers in the Library
January 31, 2007
Writers in the Library features Poetry and Chocolate with Marilyn Kallet
Kallet will read from Last Love Poems of Paul Eluard and selections from her own work
Marilyn Kallet will read poems of surrealist French poet Paul Eluard and selections from her own work on Monday, February 12 at 7 p.m. A reception, featuring chocolate, will be held immediately after the reading. The event is free and open to the public.
Kallet's translation of Eluard's works, the Last Love Poems of Paul Eluard, was first published by Louisiana State University Press in 1980. Black Widow Press published a revised and updated edition of the work in 2006.
Kallet is the author of eleven books, including poetry, translations, anthologies and criticism. Her poems have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. She has won the Tennessee Arts Commission Literary in Poetry, and was named Outstanding Woman in the Arts by the Knoxville YWCA in 2000. Kallet directed the creative writing program at UT for seventeen years and now holds the Hodges Chair for Distinguished Teaching in English.
The reading will be held in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library. The reception, sponsored by the UT English Department, will follow immediately after the reading in the Mary E. Greer Room on the second floor of Hodges Library, near the Melrose entrance.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 12:44 PM in Writers in the Library
January 06, 2007
Writers in the Library Features Poet Dennis Sampson
Sampson is UT Department of English Writer in Residence for Spring 2007
Poet and UT English Department writer-in-residence Dennis Sampson will help the UT Libraries ring in the new year by kicking off the 2007 Writers in the Library series on January 29. The performance will begin at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library and is free and open to the public.
Sampson was born and raised in South Dakota. His five volumes of poetry include The Double Genesis, Forgiveness, Constant Longing, Needlegrass, and For my Father Falling Asleep at Saint Mary's Hospital. The recipient of grants from The Virginia Council on the Arts and The North Carolina Arts Council, Sampson's poems have appeared in such magazines as The American Scholar, The Ohio Review, The Hudson Review and many others. He has taught as Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, and as the Visiting Poet in the M.F.A Program in Creative Writing at UNC Wilmington. Since 2000 he has been on the faculty at Wake Forest University.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 02:30 PM in Writers in the Library
November 09, 2006
Writers in the Library Presents Hip-History Theater
Knoxville artist Roger Smith to perform Monday, December 4
Writers in the Library will feature Roger Smith's Hip-History theater on Monday, December 4 at 7 p.m. in the Hodges Library Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
Hip History Theater is an evening that includes Smith's performance of original prose readings, a slide show of various artworks, poetry, songs, music, enlightened worldview and commentary with a unique sense of humor and ironic realities and whimsical truths revealed.
Roger Smith was born in Knoxville and raised in the Park City area of town. A renaissance man, he has worked as a musician, cartoonist, author and sculptor, and called "an artist of the cool and the macabre" by the MetroPulse's Jack Neely.
"In the strange and edgy history of Knoxville's literary, music, and art scene, Roger Smith commands his own private campaign at the head of the avant-garde," RB Morris, the UT Libraries' Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence, said. "This is a rare opportunity to catch a great show," Morris said.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by at 03:46 PM in Writers in the Library
October 19, 2006
Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet Yusef Komunyakaa at Writers in the Library
Renowned poet will read on Monday, November 6 at 7 p.m.
Yusef Komunyakaa will read at Writers in the Library on Monday, November 6 at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library. Senior Distinguished Poet at New York University, Komunyakaa has published numerous collections of poetry and won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection Neon Vernacular.
"He is one of the very best poets writing today, in my opinion," Marilyn Kallet, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee, said. "His poetry is infused with jazz-blues, and every syllable is well-crafted. He works on three books at a time," Kallet said.
Komunyakaa's poetry collections also include Copacetic (1984), I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head (1986), Dien Cai Dau (1988), and Magic City (1992), and he was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for Thieves of Paradise (1998). He also edited the anthology Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (2003), and recorded the spoken word cd The Best Cigarette (1997).
In 1999 Komunyakaa was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and his many other commendations include the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award from Claremont Graduate University, the Thomas Forcade Award, the William Faulkner Prize from the University of Rennes, the Dark Room Poetry Prize, Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize, and the Hanes Poetry Prize.
Born in Bogalusa, Louisiana in 1947, he served in the army during the Vietnam War. He received the Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, where he was a correspondent and managing editor of the Southern Cross. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Louisiana Arts Council.
Due to the popularity of this event, the reading will also be webcast into Hodges Library Rooms 127, 128, and 129 for overflow crowds.
This special event is sponsored by the Creative Writing Program in association with the John C. Hodges Better English Fund, and Writers in the Library.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 02:50 PM in Writers in the Library
October 09, 2006
Writers in the Library Features Knoxville Writers Guild Authors
Authors will read from the Guild's new anthology, Low Explosions.
On Monday, October 23, Writers in the Library welcomes Knoxville Writers Guild authors reading from their latest anthology, Low Explosions: Writings on the Body.
Low Explosions is the seventh anthology collection from the Knoxville Writers Guild. From size and shape to skin color, pregnancy, aging, ailments, disabilities, extra-abilities, disorders and genetic composition, this book peeks inside some of the most commonly fought yet controversial battles raging inside the human body.
Editor Casie Fedukovich and other Guild members culled through over 500 submissions to compile the work. "All of the pieces contend with some major explosion, whether actual--heart attacks and orgasms--or metaphorical--the author's realization that he or she is 'that age' or 'that weight' or 'that color'," Fedukovich writes in the introduction. "Explosions, on any scale, are disruptive, but many of the pieces [in the book] move beyond the initial eruption of body, mind, or spirit to bring the reader to a quiet and satisfied end," Fedukovich said.
"No matter the differences of genetic chance, each of us shares in the one universal human experience, living in the body," Jane Hicks, author of Blood and Bone Remember, said. "Low Explosions takes a frank look at living in the body, making the journey from young to old, coming together, becoming divided, the state of being within the body, our primal landscape," Hicks continued.
Laura Still, Bradford Tice, Jane Sasser, Terri Beth Miller, Emily Dziuban and Charlotte Pence will read their submissions to the anthology. The reading begins at 7:00 p.m. and will be held in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library. The event is free and open to the public.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 02:47 PM in Writers in the Library
October 02, 2006
Writers in the Library Presents Vivian Shipley
Vivian Shipley to read on Wednesday, October 18 7 p.m. at Hodges Library
Likely to slam Martha Stewart or commune with Sylvia Plath, poet Vivian Shipley is renowned for her intense imagery, vivid and gripping in its reality. Born in Chicago and raised in Kentucky, Shipley has taught at Southern Connecticut State University since 1969. She currently holds the position of distinguished professor there and also edits the Connecticut Review.
The author of 11 books, Shipley's most recent work is Hardboot: Poems New & Old, which won the 2006 Patterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement. Her book When There Is No Shore won the Connecticut Book Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress Center for the Book.
Shipley will read as part of the Writers in the Library series on Wednesday, October 18 at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library. She will also hold an informal discussion for students on October 18 from 2-3 p.m. in room 1210 of McClung Tower.
This event is sponsored by the Creative Writing Program, in association with the John C. Hodges Better English Fund, and Writers in the Library. The reading is also an Appalachian Literary Treasure as part of UT's Ready for the World program.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Martha Stewart's Ten Commandments for Snow
by Vivian Shipley
I. Make the paths neat with a slight curve. Leave at
least an inch of snow. Aesthetics are important.
II. Pack perpendicular walls of snow. Cross country
ski through them to the gym. Snowshoe to work.
III. Walk your dog. Always hang a little whisk broom
on your wrist. When you see yellow snow, remove it.
IV. If you are old, stay in your home if you have one.
Tie grosgrain ribbons on sheets. Wash the gold china.
V. It takes two hours to make a snow cave. If you don't
hibernate balled in like a snake, an igloo takes three.
VI. You can sleep out at five below zero. It will be cozy.
Dream a little. Dye the iced walls with food coloring.
VII. Wrap yourself in layers of pastel tissue from Chanel.
If you are poor, newspaper, cardboard, just anything.
VIII. Hypothermia could set in. First signs are that you feel
weak or sleepy. Keep something nearby, a bottle will do.
IX. The body is a furnace. Funnel or pour anything handy
into your mouth-86 calories per hour or 2,000 a day.
X. You may have problems walking on ice and fall down.
Don't beg. In calligraphy, letter: Please Pick Me Up.
-from Vivian Shipley's award-winning collection When There is no Shore
Posted by Laura Purcell at 12:43 PM in Writers in the Library
August 29, 2006
Writers in the Library Announces Fall Line Up
Poet Singer-Songwriter Tom House to Launch Series on September 25
The University of Tennessee Writers in the Library series has an exciting slate of readers for its Fall 2006 season. The first reading of the season will be held on Monday, September 25 and feature Tom House, a Nashville-based poet and singer-songwriter.
"If there's a reincarnation of Woody Guthrie's unique sprit and talents, it's not Steve Earle, not Springsteen, not Dylan, but Tom House. His abilities and purity are untouched in the wasteland of artists our current culture serves up," RB Morris, Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence, said.
As a musician, House has received worldwide attention for his unique recordings and performances. His most recent album, The Last Desperate Man, was released in September 2005, called by the Nashville Scene, "a melodicism that drinks as deeply of the plaintive lyricism of Appalachia as of the lilting, brooding folk-blues of East Texas."
House has also collaborated on a number of musical adaptations of literary works, including an opera based on the first chapter of William Faulkner's Light in August, song cycles based on Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and Connie May Fowler's Remembering Blue, and the songs for a play based on Lee Smith's novel, Fair and Tender Ladies.
Tom House will read for Writers in the Library on Monday, September 25 at 7 pm in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library. The event is free and open to the public.
Upcoming Writers in the Library authors include:
Vivian Shipley: October 18
Knoxville Writers Guild: October 23
Yusef Komunyakaa: November 6
Roger Smith: December 4
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 04:11 PM in Writers in the Library
August 03, 2006
RB Morris to Continue as Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence
Morris will direct Writers in the Library series for third year
UT Libraries is pleased to announce that RB Morris will continue as the Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence for the 2006-2007 academic year. This is Morris' third year in residence at the UT Libraries.
"It has been a great and unexpected honor to serve as the Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence at the University of Tennessee Libraries," Morris said.
The libraries provide an office and computer for the writer in residence, as well as access to library materials and a small stipend. In his first two years in residency, Morris has prepared two books for publication and written a play, which he is now working to produce.
During his tenure, Morris has worked tirelessly organizing one of the libraries' most successful events, the Writers in the Library Reading series. His involvement with the series has been one of the most fulfilling parts of the job, Morris said. Since he began at UT in 2004, Writers in the Library has featured Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Ted Kooser and Charles Wright, National Book Award nominee Elizabeth Gilbert, and poet-rockers David Olney and Steve Earle.
"Being a part of the Writers in the Library series, I've watched the connection grow between UT and the local, regional and national literary scene. I believe this is very much in the great legacy of Dr. Reese and I'm proud to have been a part of that," Morris continued.
The Writers in the Library reading series will begin on September 25 with author Tom House. The series will celebrate its seventh year with readings from notable authors such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Yusef Komunyakaa and Pulitzer nominee Vivian Shipley.
"RB has made such a positive contribution to the libraries, the campus, and the local literary community. His enthusiasm is palpable, and his energy has attracted diverse readers and audiences to Writers in the Library. We are so pleased that he has agreed to stay for a third year," Barbara Dewey, Dean of Libraries, said.
"I'm looking forward to a third and final year with a lot of excitement and anticipation," Morris said.
For Fall 2006 Writers in the Library reading series dates, please visit http://www.lib.utk.edu/writersinthelibrary.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 03:40 PM in Writers in the Library
April 18, 2006
Award-winning student authors to read works
Final Writers in the Library features creative writing students on April 24
Students in UT's Creative Writing Program compete annually for the John C. Hodges Graduate Writing Prizes in fiction and poetry. Winners were announced April 23 and will read from their award-winning works at the final WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY event of the season, 7 p.m. on Monday, April 24, in the John C. Hodges Library auditorium. The prizes were endowed by the same long-time UT English professor, author of the Harbrace College Handbook, for whom the Hodges Library is named.
Winners in fiction: First Place, Brad Tice, for his story "Antivenom." Second Place, Jessica Weintraub, for her story "The Center of the River."
Winners in poetry: First Place, Andrew Najberg, for his poem "Reverence." Second Place, Jessica Weintraub, for her poem "An African Conception."
Author of Harbrace Handbook made significant contributions to University Libraries, English lit
His enthusiastic commitment to learning did not end with retirement, however. Three years earlier he had begun the task of improving the university's library collection, and he continued to serve voluntarily as coordinator of library development until his death in 1967.
His 41 years at the University were marked by far-reaching contributions to the study of English literature and the improvement of educational methods. Dr. Hodges' influence on the teaching of English continues today through his Harbrace College Handbook, the most widely used college text in the country.
The current John C. Hodges Main Library, which opened in 1987, was constructed around the John C. Hodges Undergraduate Library built in 1969.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 03:29 PM in Writers in the Library
March 17, 2006
Chaplin and Agee: The Untold Story featured at April Writers in the Library
Author John Wranovics to speak Monday, April 17 at the University Club
John Wranovics, author of Chaplin and Agee: The Untold Story of the Tramp, the Writer, and the Lost Screenplay, will discuss his book at Writers in the Library on Monday, April 17 at 7 pm. The event will be held at the University Club at the Corner of Kingston Pike and Neyland Drive and is free and open to the public.
Wranovics' work explores the unlikely friendship between author Agee and film legend Chaplin. Agee wrote his first screenplay, The Tramp’s New World, to feature Chaplin's trademark character in a post-apocalyptic New York City. While Chaplin never considered making the film in a serious way, the script was a catalyst for a great friendship between the two.
The event is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Library Friends.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 03:48 PM in Writers in the Library
February 18, 2006
Knoxville Poets to Read at Writers in the Library March 13
Two poets with Knoxville roots, Charles Morris and Marianne Worthington, will read from their works on Monday, March 13 at Writers in the Library.
The reading begins at 7 PM and is free and open to the public.
Marianne Worthington was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, and has lived in southeastern Kentucky since 1990, where she is Associate Professor of Communication Arts at Cumberland College in Williamsburg. She is a creative writing instructor for the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts and the Reviews Editor for Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine. Her writing has appeared widely in such journals as Shenandoah, Wind, and The Louisville Review. "On Broadway," her essay about growing up in Fountain City, was included in the literary anthology Knoxville Bound. Her poetry chapbook, Larger Bodies Than Mine, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2006.
Charles Morris was born in Oak Ridge and raised in Knoxville. A local poet and songwriter, he describes himself as "a student of Rimbaud, a friend of Homer." His book of poetry, A Pocket for the Sea, was published by Armadillo Poetry Press in 1998. He has also co-authored a number of songs with his brother RB Morris, including "Distillery" on the album Zeke and the Wheel.
"Both these writers, Charles Morris and Marianne Worthington, bring a different perspective and style to the local poetry scene," RB Morris, Jack Reese Writer in Residence at UT Libraries, said. "Their work has probably traveled more outside the local area than it has within. All of Knoxville, as well as UT students, should check it out."
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by at 12:46 PM in Writers in the Library
February 02, 2006
Celebrate Language, Love and Poetry at Writers in the Library, Monday, February 13th
The romance of celebrity and the comforts of home reign at the UT Libraries this Valentine's Eve with a night of poetry at Writers in the Library. Poets Joseph Campana and Jesse Graves will read from their works on Monday, February 13th at 7 PM in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library. All Writers in the Library events are free and open to the public.
Joseph Campana grew up in the foothills of the Adirondack mountains. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, New England Review, Conjunctions, Gulf Coast, and Colorado Review and are forthcoming in Triquarterly, Prairie Schooner and Michigan Quarterly Review. His first collection, The Book of Faces, is a poetic iconography of Audrey Hepburn published by Graywolf Press (2005). Campana currently teaches Renaissance literature and creative writing at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH.
Where are you tonight, Audrey Hepburn?
The stalls are empty, the boys are gone.
No one kneels at the feet of beauty.
A limp film slickens in the wind:
flaps on a wheel of fire.
--from the poem "Final Cut" by Joseph Campana
Jesse Graves was born and raised in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, a farming community north of Knoxville, which has been the subject of much of his work and study. Jesse is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English at the University of Tennessee, where he won the 2004 John C. Hodges Graduate Poetry Award and the 2005 James Agee Conference Award in Poetry. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Cornell University, and has taught literature and writing at Cornell, University of New Orleans, and U.T. His poems are forthcoming in New Millennium Writings and Crossroads: A Southern Culture Annual.
The dead move through us at their will, their voices chime just out of our hearing.
How else do we feel our names when no one speaks them?
How else do we still catch the echo of footprints decades after running through the grass?
Alone in the field, and never alone. Quiet and not quiet.
Home and away.--from the poem, "Tennessee Landscape, with Blighted Pine" by Jesse Graves
For more details about Writers in the Library, visit their Web site.
All Writers in the Library events are held on Mondays at 7 PM in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library on the UT Campus. Other Writers in the Library events for Spring 2006 include Marianne Worthington and Charles Morris on March 13, John Wranovics on April 17 and student winners from the UT Creative Writing Program on April 24.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by at 01:50 PM in Press Releases, Writers in the Library
December 13, 2005
Country rocker Steve Earle will be January 30 Writer in the Library
Country rock musician Steve Earle will display some of his alternate talents -- writer, poet, playwright -- as the first reader in the spring Writers in the Library series. Earle will entertain us at 7pm on Monday, January 30, 2006, in the Hodges Library auditorium on the University of Tennessee campus. The event is free and open to the public.
The UT Libraries' Writer in Residence, RB Morris, who organizes the Writers in the Library series, is thrilled to bring Steve Earle to campus. "Steve sold out the Tennessee Theater at a pretty steep ticket price last winter playing with his band. Now we have him coming back to town to lay some spoken word on us at Hodges Library auditorium that seats maybe 200 people and is free and open to the public. I just hope the Library's still there when it's over," quipped Morris.
From Steve Earle's web site:"For those who don't know, Steve Earle has been, for the past two decades, one of the more compellingly engaged figures on the American cultural landscape. Steve is the author of best-selling works of fiction ("Doghouse Roses"), a playwright, and a well-known speaker and presence in a variety of left-leaning populist movements. But it is in his persona as an exceedingly thoughtful, yet fun, country rocker that most people know him, and rightly so. His contribution to the merging of progressive country to the wider rock audience remains huge. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that the entire genre of "alt. Country" would not exist without Earle's ground-breaking extension of what used to be called "folk-rock." His recorded work, from the classic 1986 Guitartown onward through such excitingly heartfelt/redemptive works as Copperhead Road, I Feel Alright, El Corazon, Transcendental Blues, to the current The Revolution Starts...Now, represents an extraordinary catalogue of deeply personal music which compares favorably with such esteemed heroes as Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, or even Bob Dylan.
"Few artists have been able and/or willing to put themselves so consistently on the line, or to forthrightly speak their minds as Earle has, while continuing to maintain a commercial presence."
For more details about Writers in the Library, visit www.lib.utk.edu/writersinthelibrary/.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Martha Rudolph at 10:05 AM in Writers in the Library
September 29, 2005
Writers in the Library Features Poets in October
Award-winning Tennessee poets Jeff Hardin and Charlotte Pence to read on Monday, October 17
Tennessee poets Jeff Hardin and Charlotte Pence will read their works at Writers in the Library on Monday, October 17 at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library. The event is free and open to the public.
"These are amazing young poets," Marilyn Kallet, UT professor of English, said. "Jeff Hardin has won a major American poetry prize and has a strong new first book of poems [published]. Charlotte Pence is an alum who has published a beautiful book ... and has won the New Millenium Poetry prize. They remind us of the wealth of creative talent in Tennessee!" Kallet said.
Jeff Hardin teaches at Columbia State Community College in Columbia, TN. He has authored two chapbooks, Deep in the Shallows and The Slow Hill Out, as well as one book, Fall Sanctuary, which won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize from Story Line Press. He has also been published in Mid-American Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Ploughshares, among other prestigious literary journals.
Charlotte Pence teaches at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. She earned an MFA from Emerson College in 1998 and received the individual artist fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission in 2003. She has published a book, The Writer’s Path: Creative Exercises for Meaningful Essays and has had her poetry published in journals such as Southern Poetry Review, Seattle Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review.
For more details about Writers in the Library, visit their Web site.
All Writers in the Library events are held on Mondays at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library on the UT Campus. Other Writers in the Library events for this year include UT Libraries Jack Reese Writer in Residence RB Morris on November 7, and local author and music historian Jack Rentfro on December 5. Singer-songwriter Steve Earle is slated to perform on January 30, 2006.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Martha Rudolph at 10:40 AM in Writers in the Library
September 21, 2005
KNOXVILLE AUTHOR JACK RENTFRO TO SPEAK AT WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY ON DECEMBER 5
Knoxville Author Jack Rentfro will speak at the final Writers in the Library event for 2005 on Monday, December 5. The event will begin at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library and is free and open to the public.
Rentfro is editor and author of Cumberland Avenue Revisited: Four Decades of Music from Knoxville, Tennessee (Cardinal Publishing, 2003), which explores Knoxville's amazing and under-appreciated pop music history. He is also a freelance writer who has worked for several East Tennessee newspapers and other publications. Rentfro's fiction and essays have appeared in three consecutive Knoxville Writers Guild anthologies, Migrants and Stowaways, Literary Lunch, and Breathing the Same Air.
"Jack Rentfro is an incredible writer and a unique individual," RB Morris, UT Libraries Jack Reese Writer in Residence, said. "He's done more than probably anyone to establish Knoxville's unique literary and musical history, all while enriching it with his own work. Students should come and gawk and take close notes," Morris said.
For more details about Writers in the Library, visit their Web site.
All Writers in the Library events are held on Mondays at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library on the UT Campus. The first Writers in the Library for 2006 will feature singer-songwriter Steve Earle on January 30, 2006.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 01:25 PM in Writers in the Library
NOVEMBER WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY TO FEATURE RB MORRIS
RB Morris, UT Libraries' Jack Reese Writer in Residence, will perform as part of the Writers in the Library series on November 7. The event will begin at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library and is free and open to the public.
Morris began his tenure as writer in residence in 2004, and has hosted singer-songwriter David Olney, author Elizabeth Gilbert, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Wright, among many others, as part of the Writers in the Library series.
He is the author of two books of poetry, Littoral Zone and The Man Upstairs. As a recording artist, Morris has produced Take That Ride, Zeke and the Wheel, Knoxville Sessions and Local Man. He is also the author of The Man Who Lives Here is Loony, a one-man play written from the life and works of James Agee. The play was recently produced at UT's Carousel Theater and in New York City at the Cornelia Street Cafe.
For more details about Writers in the Library, visit their Web site.
All Writers in the Library events are held on Mondays at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library on the UT Campus. Other Writers in the Library events for this year include local author and music historian Jack Rentfro on December 5. Singer-songwriter Steve Earle is slated to perform on January 30, 2006.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack Reese Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 01:10 PM in Writers in the Library
September 12, 2005
UT Libraries Writer in Residence Renamed for Late Chancellor Jack Reese
Libraries honored to remember Reese as artist, teacher and library supporter
When UT Libraries Writer in Residence RB Morris introduces the first reading of Writers in the Library this year, he'll have a new title: the Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence.
Former UT Chancellor Jack E. Reese was an active supporter of the UT Libraries, and his students initiated the Jack E. Reese Library Endowment after his retirement in 1989. Now monies from the endowment will be used to underwrite a cause near and dear to Dr. Reese: supporting writers and writing.
Reese, who passed away in May, was a member of the UT community for more than 38 years. He came to UT in 1961 as an English instructor, and retired in 1989 after serving as chancellor for sixteen years. Reese continued to teach in the College Scholars program for ten years, reaching professor emeritus status in 1999.
At his retirement in 1989, the first floor galleria of Hodges Library was named in his honor. In addition to being a beloved teacher and administrator, Reese was active in the community, serving as chair of the Tennessee Arts Commission and the first president of the Knoxville Writers Guild.
"Jack Reese's dedication to the libraries is sorely missed," Barbara Dewey, Dean of Libraries, said. Reese was instrumental in getting the new Hodges Library built in 1986, and was the impetus behind the Tennessee Imperative Campaign, which raised $7 million for library acquisitions.
"It seems only fitting to name the Writer in Residence position in his honor, as he was such a champion of both the UT Libraries and the literary community at UT and in Knoxville," Dewey said.
"My father was many things, but he was an artist at heart," Brad Reese, Jack Reese's son, said. "I can think of no greater way to honor his legacy than to name the Writer in Residence program after him. He would have loved that RB Morris is the first Jack Reese Writer in Residence. Mr. Morris exemplifies many of the characteristics my father so valued in an artist: truthfulness, humor, sense of place, and that peculiar irony that all great Southern writers possess," Reese said.
The Writer in Residence program was founded at UT Libraries in 1998, in order to support an up-and-coming author interested in making an effort to write full time. UT is one of only a few academic libraries to host such a program.
UT Libraries' first Writer in Residence was Knoxville author Brian Griffin. Griffin, along with then-English literature librarian Steve Harris began the Writers in the Library reading series in 1999. The tradition of the reading series has been continued by all succeeding Writers in Residence, the goal of the series being to promote the literary arts in the library, at the university and within the community.
For more details about Writers in the Library, visit their Web site.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or RB Morris, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 11:05 AM in Writers in the Library
September 09, 2005
Writers in the Library Series to begin Monday, September 19
Series begins with singer-songwriter poets Ron and Sarah Elizabeth Whitehead
Writers in the Library begins its 6th season this year with a performance by authors and singer-songwriting couple Ron and Sarah Elizabeth Whitehead. The first event of the season will be held on Monday, September 19 at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library and is free and open to the public.
"To see Ron and Sarah Elizabeth perform, you get an unbelievable breadth of literary and musical expression," RB Morris, UT Libraries Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence, said. "Their work is utterly authentic and reaches from the grassroots sentiments of their home in rural Kentucky to something reminiscent of the Beat writers and Hunter Thompson," Morris said.
Author, editor and professor Ron Whitehead has been nominated for both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. He most recently released a new CD, Closing Time, as well as a new book, The Third Testament: Three Gospels of Peace. Singer, musician, and author Sarah Elizabeth Whitehead has performed and published in both the US and abroad. She has a new album out called When the Redbuds Bloom. Together, the Whiteheads tour internationally.
For more details about Writers in the Library, visit their Web site.
All Writers in the Library events are held on Mondays at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library on the UT Campus. Other Writers in the Library events for this year include poets Charlotte Pence and Jeff Hardin on October 17, UT Libraries Jack Reese Writer in Residence RB Morris on November 7, and local author and music historian Jack Rentfro on December 5. Singer-songwriter Steve Earle is slated to perform on January 30, 2006.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 01:05 PM in Writers in the Library
March 28, 2005
Award-winning student authors to read works
Final Writers in the Library features creative writing students on April 25
Students in UT's Creative Writing Program compete annually for the John C. Hodges Graduate Writing Prizes in fiction and poetry. Winners will be announced April 12 and will read from their award-winning works at the final WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY event of the season, 7 p.m. on Monday, April 25, in the John C. Hodges Library auditorium. The prizes were endowed by the same long-time UT English professor, author of the Harbrace College Handbook, for whom the Hodges Library is named.
Winners of the 2005 John C. Hodges Graduate Fiction Award are Jessica Weintraub, for her story Base Pairs, and Brad Tice, for his story How to Become an American Boy. Poetry Award winners are Brad Tice for his poem "Arabesque," and Casie Fedukovich, for her poem "Dichotomy of Fur and Feather."
Author of Harbrace Handbook made significant contributions to University Libraries, English lit
His enthusiastic commitment to learning did not end with retirement, however. Three years earlier he had begun the task of improving the university's library collection, and he continued to serve voluntarily as coordinator of library development, soliciting contributions of both books and money until his death in 1967.
His 41 years at the University were marked by far-reaching contributions to the study of English literature and the improvement of educational methods. Dr. Hodges' influence on the teaching of English continues today through his Harbrace College Handbook, the most widely used college text in the country.
The current John C. Hodges Main Library, which opened in 1987, was constructed around the John C. Hodges Undergraduate Library built in 1969.
Posted by at 03:30 PM in Writers in the Library
Experience "storetry" at Writers in the Library
Featuring poet & printmaker Kevin Bradley on April 4
Kevin Bradley, talented poet, printmaker and co-owner of Yee-Haw Industries, will be the featured author at the April 4 WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY event. Bradley will read his poems and talk about the process of hand-printing giant versions of the poems on a letterpress. Some of these 9-foot-high creations - which Bradley calls "storetry" - will be on display at the reading.
Yee-Haw Industries, owned and run by Kevin Bradley and Julie Belcher, is located on Gay Street in downtown Knoxville. Yee-Haw is famous for letterpress posters and woodcut prints.
The presentation will take place at 7 p.m. in the Hodges Library Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
Posted by at 03:12 PM in Writers in the Library
February 23, 2005
Writers in the Library goes on the road with Jack Kerouac's biographer
Monday, March 14, Writers in the Library hosts Gerald Nicosia, author of Memory Babe, the definitive biography of Jack Kerouac and Home to War, a history of the Vietnam Veterans movement. The reading will begin at 7 p.m. in the Hodges Library Auditorium and is free and open to the public.
In 1951, Jack Kerouac spent 20 days typing the story of an aimless trek he made across America in one spontaneous, stream-of-conscious burst. The result is the classic novel On the Road, a single-spaced tome written on a 120-foot long scroll of tracing paper.
Kerouac's 83rd birthday is on Saturday, March 12, and while we can't spend the day with the godfather of the Beat Generation himself, we can spend a few hours with Nicosia, who dedicated years of his own life piecing together the details of Kerouac's.
Nicosia conducted 300 interviews and collected thousands of letters and documents to write his nearly 800-page critical analysis of Kerouac's life and work. The book earned him the Distinguished Young Writer Award from the National Society for Arts and Letters and is generally recognized as the consummate look at Kerouac's life.
Nicosia is also well-known for his own poetry and fiction, but returned to nonfiction for his 2001 book Home to War, where he interviewed 600 Vietnam Veterans who became active in the antiwar movement or worked as veterans' advocates. The book garnered great praise, including starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal. It was re-released in 2004 by Avalon Books with an introduction by Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead.
A freelance journalist, interviewer, and literary critic for the past 27 years, Nicosia has contributed to hundreds of publications, including the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. He is currently at work on a book about the case of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal and the death penalty in America, as well as a book about the FBI, John Kerry, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
He was a man for whom nothing was secure, not even his name. He had been baptized Jean Louis Kirouac, son of Leo Keroack and Gabrielle L'Evesque. In the rectory of the poor unfinished St. Louis de France Church in Centralville, the nicest French section of Lowell, Massachusetts, his name meant so little that even a priest could carelessly misspell it. |
Posted by Laura Purcell at 09:23 AM in Writers in the Library
February 13, 2005
Writers in the Library: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Wright
Join us Monday, March 7 for an evening of poetry with Charles Wright, to be held at the University Club at 7 p.m.
Wright, a Pulitzer prize-winning poet and current professor of English at the University of Virginia, was born in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee, and grew up in Kingsport. After earning a degree in history at Davidson College, Wright entered the military and began writing poetry while serving in Italy with the US Army.
This special Writers in the Library event is co-sponsored by the University of Tennessee Library Friends, and is free and open to the public. This event will be held at the University Club at the corner of Kingston Pike and Neyland Drive at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 7.
"I think you could call him the Robert Frost or T.S. Eliot of the South," said RB Morris, who is the current Writer-in-Residence at the Libraries. "His poetry retains the good Southern heart and is in touch with the nature and culture of the South."
After finishing his military service, Wright earned an MFA at the University of Iowa. He taught at the University of California at Irvine before moving to UVA in 1983. Wright has published over twenty books of poetry and poetic translations, and much of his poetry has earned the highest accolades. Country Music: Selected Early Poems won the National Book Award in 1983; Black Zodiac won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Pulitzer Prize, among others. Wright has also been a Fulbright scholar, and has won Guggenheim and Ingram Merrill fellowships.
"I am so pleased to be able to help bring Charles Wright to UT and have him read," said Morris. "What surprised me most was that he hadn’t been to Knoxville before and wanted to come. It is truly our good fortune."
Dew-dangled, fresh-cut lawn grass will always smell like a golf course |
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 04:31 PM in Writers in the Library
February 08, 2005
Writers in the Library Features Authors from Knoxville Bound
Authors from the new Knoxville Bound anthology will read at Writers in the Library on Monday, February 21 at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Just over a year ago, Knoxville author Judy Loest heard a story on NPR about French Quarter Fiction, a new anthology made up entirely of stories set in New Orleans.
Although Knoxville is much smaller, not as infamous, and not as old, Loest thought, "We can do that, too." Soon, a call for submissions went out and the proverbial ball started rolling.
Loest, along with Cumberland Avenue Revisited author Jack Rentfro and a collection of Knoxville Writers' Guild volunteers, sifted through hundreds of submissions. The result is a hefty but elegantly designed volume that succeeds in wrapping its literary arms around a city.
To some contributors, Knoxville is a big, dangerous city, a bewildering Gomorrah of panhandlers, drug dealers, cross-dressers. To others, it's all interstate exits and chain stores; or a slow-paced place to encounter quaint country folk. "Whatever one’s orientation, Knoxville makes people think, and also has an alarming tendency to make them write," Loest said.
The anthology is comprised of pieces by both noted and famous authors as well as talented local writers. The book appropriately begins with a snippet of Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree, followed by the definitive Knoxville vignette, James Agee’s "Knoxville: Summer 1915." Noted poet Nikki Giovanni describes life at "400 Mulvaney Street." Author and LSU professor David Madden provides one of his early stories, a Cherokee Boulevard motorcycle-and-girl fantasy called "A Piece of the Sky."
Authors scheduled to read at the Feb. 21 event are Amy Billone, Marilyn Kallet, RB Morris, Deb Scaperoth, and Art Smith.
Amy Billone received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University in 2001. In 1993 she won an Academy of American Poets award. She currently teaches English at The University of Tennessee and is completing a book of poetry entitled This Clear.
Marilyn Kallet directed the creative writing program at UT for seventeen years (1986-2003); she now holds the Hodges Chair for Distinguished Teaching in English. The author of nine books, her most recent publication, Circe, After Hours, was published in January 2005.
RB Morris is currently the UT Libraries’ Writer-in-Residence. He has published two volumes of poetry, The Man Upstairs (1998) and Littoral Zone (2004). His CDs include Take That Ride, Knoxville Sessions, and Zeke and the Wheel.
Deborah Scaperoth is currently working on a Ph.D. in English at the University of Tennessee. Her work has appeared in such journals as Spring Street, The Phoenix, New Millennium Writings, and Yemassee.
Art Smith is a Professor of English at the University of Tennessee. His poems have appeared in numerous journals including The Nation, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Southern Review, and North American Review.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.
Posted by Laura Purcell at 04:34 PM in Writers in the Library
January 28, 2005
Writers in the Library celebrates Valentine's with poetry, chocolate
Three poetesses to slam, perform verse
Ah, l'amour. Maybe not so much. Who needs romantic candlelight when you can have chocolate and poetry? Writers in the Library will feature three local poets, Marilyn Kallet, Kali Meister and Julia Nance, who will perform their verse on Monday, Feb. 14 at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium at Hodges Library. The event is free and open to the public.
Kallet is the author of nine books, and will read from her most recent publication, Circe, After Hours, published by the BkMk Press at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Her poems have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines, and she has won the Tennessee Arts Commission Literary Fellowship in poetry, and was named Outstanding Woman in the Arts by the Knoxville YWCA in 2000. Marilyn Kallet directed the creative writing program at the University of Tennessee for seventeen years and now holds the Hodges Chair for Distinguished Teaching in English.
Meister, who is currently pursuing a psychology degree at UT, has dabbled in a bit of all performance art, including acting in motion pictures such as Leap of Faith, Dazed and Confused, JFK and I'll Take the Cheesecake. She has toured comedy clubs in the Southwest, and has directed Talking With at the Oak Ridge Playhouse and the 2003 UT run of The Vagina Monologues. She has recently been published in The Pegasus Review and Prism.
Nance, who studied Creative Writing at UT, has garnered numerous accolades for her slamming skills, winning the Chicago Green Mill Slam and placing in the LEAF Slam. She performs in Knoxville frequently and shares the title of Knoxville's Slam Mistress with Rhea Sunshine. Nance presents a Themed Slam held every second Friday at the Emporium on Gay Street, and will have a two-day show at the Knox Word Spoken Word Showcase to be held at the Black Box on April 8-9. Her work has been published in Breathing the Same Air, Number One, Savoy as well as a self-published chapbook, syntaxxx.
The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department.