Author Robert Morgan will present the final reading of the fall semester at WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY Monday, November 14, at 7 p.m., in UT’s Hodges Library auditorium. The reading is free and open to the public.

Morgan is the author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Two titles published this year demonstrate the breadth of his talent: Through portraits of influential Americans from Thomas Jefferson to Kit Carson, Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion tells the story of the American conquest of the West. The poems in his new collection, Terroir, explore memory, family narratives, and the natural world. “Readers of Morgan’s fiction will recognize many places, themes, and voices, while fans of his poetry will see a fresh energy in poems drawing on science and folklore, Native American history, and music.”

His acclaimed novel Gap Creek won a Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and was chosen Book of the Year for 2000 by the Appalachian Writers Association. Gap Creek was both a New York Times bestseller and a selection of the Oprah Book Club. Morgan has also proved to be an accomplished biographer. His Boone: A Biography has been praised for stripping away the myth to reveal the complex character of the legendary frontiersman.

Morgan is Kappa Alpha Professor of English at Cornell University and has been visiting writer-in-residence at half a dozen universities. His awards include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the James G. Hanes Poetry Prize from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and an Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature. He was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in 2010.

Read a review of Lions of the West on Chapter 16: a community of Tennessee writers, readers and passersby (brought to you by Humanities Tennessee).

Writers in the Library is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the UT Department of English. For further information contact Marilyn Kallet, Director, UT Creative Writing Program (mkallet@utk.edu), or Jeff Daniel Marion, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries (dannymar@earthlink.net).

Melissa Range will read from her poetry at Writers in the Library, 7 p.m., Monday, November 7, in UT’s Hodges Library auditorium.

Melissa Range’s first book of poems, Horse and Rider, Texas Tech University Press, won the 2010 Walt McDonald First-Book Series Prize in Poetry. She has published in The Georgia Review, The Hudson Review, Image, and The Paris Review and in the anthologies Best Spiritual Writing 2011 and The Southern Poetry Anthology: Contemporary Appalachia. She has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Discovery/The Nation prize, and fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is currently pursuing a PhD in English and creative writing at the University of Missouri.

Read her poem “New Heavens, New Earth” on Chapter 16: a community of Tennessee writers, readers and passersby (brought to you by Humanities Tennessee).

Writers in the Library is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the UT Department of English. For further information contact Marilyn Kallet, Director, UT Creative Writing Program (mkallet@utk.edu), or Jeff Daniel Marion, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries (dannymar@earthlink.net).

Poet Blas Falconer will read his work at Writers in the Library on Monday, October 24, 7 p.m. at the UT Hodges Library Auditorium. The reading is free and open to the public.

In his latest book of poems, A Question of Gravity and Light, Falconer uses the metaphor of “crossings” to tie together poems in free verse and traditional poetic forms. The jacket notes for A Question of Gravity and Light describe his “delicacy of his touch, never obvious or heavy-handed. As a gay man who embraces his Puerto Rican heritage, Falconer stands at an edge of American society, and there is the tension of borders in his work: borders between peoples and nations as well as the less visible, more porous and deceptive borders between family members and lovers. There is not one point of view in these poems but many.”

Falconer is also the author of a poetry chapbook, The Perfect Hour, and co-editor of two anthologies, Mentor and Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets and The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity, a forthcoming collection of essays on contemporary Latino poetry. (Read a review of The Other Latin@ on CHAPTER 16: A COMMUNITY OF TENNESSEE WRITERS, READERS & PASSERSBY: www.chapter16.org/content/diversity-within-diversity.

His honors include the Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award, the New Delta Review Eyster Prize for Poetry, the Barthelme Fellowship, and a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship.

Falconer is associate professor of Languages and Literature at Austin Peay State University and poetry editor of Zone 3 Press and the literary journal, Zone 3.

Writers in the Library is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the UT Department of English. For further information contact Marilyn Kallet, Director, UT Creative Writing Program (mkallet@utk.edu), or Jeff Daniel Marion, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries (dannymar@earthlink.net).

Novelist Amy Greene will read at Writers in the Library on Monday, October 17, at 7 p.m., in the University of Tennessee’s John C. Hodges Library Auditorium. Her debut novel, Bloodroot, a family saga set in the Smoky Mountains, has been called a “spot-on account of a land and its people — with its old-fashioned Scots-Irish dialect and its close-knit communities, its homespun Christianity and its folk remedies.” The story is narrated by different members of the Lamb family and follows the family’s history from the Great Depression to the present, telling a “dark and riveting story of the legacies — of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss — that haunt one family across the generations.”

Bloodroot has received numerous recognitions, including Booklist‘s Top 10 Debut Novels, the Best Debut Fiction list from Kirkus Reviews, and the Weatherford Award for fiction from the Appalachian Studies Association. Her second novel, Long Man, is forthcoming from Knopf.

Amy Greene was born and raised in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, where she lives with her husband and two children.

Writers in the Library is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT Department of English. This reading is also sponsored by UT’s Ready For The World initiative and the UT Commission for Women.

For more information, contact Margaret Lazarus Dean, University of Tennessee Department of English, mdean4@utk.edu.

Writers in the Library will feature poetry with a French flavor on Wednesday, October 5. Poets reading from their works at 7 p.m. in the Hodges Library Auditorium on the UT campus will include J. Bradford Anderson, Darren Jackson, Marilyn Kallet, and Rose Becallo Raney. A mystery guest will open the show. Following the readings, French snacks will be on offer in the Mary Greer Room (next to Starbucks).

J. Bradford Anderson studied at the Sorbonne and received his PhD in comparative literature from Yale University. He translated Alexander von Humboldt’s Political Essay on the Island of Cuba (University of Chicago Press, 2011). His translations of Chantal Bizzini’s poetry have appeared in Two Lines: A Journal of Translation, and he is currently translating the poems of Georges Schehadé, the Franco-Lebanese writer.

Darren Jackson, editor of Grist: The Journal for Writers, is a doctoral student in poetry at UT Knoxville. His poetry has appeared in the journals Smartish Pace, Iron Horse, and Terrain, among others. His essay on translating Michaux’s La vie dans les plis was published by Public Republic. He is currently co-translating Chantal Bizzini’s poetry.

Marilyn Kallet is the director of UT’s Creative Writing Program and the author of 15 books, including Packing Light: New and Selected Poems. Her PhD is in comparative literature from Rutgers. She also studied at the Sorbonne, and her translations from the French include The Big Game, by Benjamin Péret, and Last Love Poems of Paul Eluard, from Black Widow Press.

Rose Becallo Raney is a science and technical writer who has won the Tennessee Writers Alliance prize in poetry. She received her MA in creative writing/poetry at UT.

The readers are all past participants in the “O Taste and See” poetry workshop taught by Marilyn Kallet for the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, in Auvillar, France.

Read what Marilyn Kallet says about the art of translation on CHAPTER 16: A COMMUNITY OF TENNESSEE WRITERS, READERS & PASSERBY: www.chapter16.org/content/putting-mustache-mona-lisa

Writers in the Library is sponsored by the Creative Writing Program of the University of Tennessee English Department in association with the UT Libraries.

For more information, contact Marilyn Kallet, Director, UT Creative Writing Program, mkallet@utk.edu.

National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes will delight Knoxville audiences with his poetry on Wednesday, September 21, 7 p.m., in the Hodges Library Auditorium. Hayes is known for his jazz-blues-infused urban riffs, for his agile and elegant verses, especially in Lighthead, which was honored by the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010.

Hayes will also offer an informal author chat, September 21, 3-4 p.m., 1210-1211 McClung Tower.

Terrrance Hayes is the author of four books of poems, including Lighthead; Wind in a Box; Hip Logic, winner of the National Poetry Series; Muscular Music, winner of both the Whiting Writers Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His work has won two Pushcart Prizes, and he has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Foundation grant. He has been featured on Jim Lehrer’s PBS News Hour.

He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University.

Both the reading and the informal chat are free and open to the public. Seating is limited — arrive early!

The events are sponsored by the University of Tennessee Creative Writing Program in association with the John C. Hodges Better English Fund, College of Arts & Sciences Haines-Morris Endowment Fund, Africana Studies, and Writers in the Library.

For more information, contact Marilyn Kallet, Director, UT Creative Writing Program, mkallet@utk.edu.

Avid readers and music lovers alike will enjoy the first evening of WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY on the University of Tennessee campus. The fall series of writers reading from their works opens with a reading and musical performance by Jim Clark.

Jim Clark — poet/author, musician, songwriter extraordinaire — will read and perform Monday, September 12, at 7 p.m. in the UT Hodges Library auditorium, joined by Katy Adams and Terry Phillips. Clark uniquely blends the spoken word of poetry with old-time strings and balladeering, recently releasing the poetry of Byron Herbert Reece set to his original music.

Clark has published two books of poems, Dancing on Canaan’s Ruins and Handiwork; written a play, The Girl with the Faraway Eye; edited Fable in the Blood: The Selected Poems of Byron Herbert Reece; and served as an editor of such literary journals as The Denver Quarterly, The Greensboro Review, and The Vanderbilt Poetry Review. His most recent book is Notions: A Jim Clark Miscellany.

He has recorded CDs of both poetry and folk-rock music (with his band The Near Myths). The Service of Song (2010), featuring Clark’s musical settings of poems by north Georgia “farmer-poet” Byron Herbert Reece, is his most recent CD.

Clark is currently the Elizabeth H. Jordan Professor of Southern Literature and Chair of the Department of English and Modern Language at Barton College, in Wilson, North Carolina, where he is Director of The Barton College Creative Writing Symposium and an editor of the literary journal Crucible.

WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY, sponsored by the UT Department of English and the UT Libraries, will offer seven events this fall, including readings by Terrance Hayes, Amy Greene, Blas Falconer, Melissa Range, and Robert Morgan – and Vive la Poésie, an event styled as “French-flavored poetry.” The fall and spring schedules are available at www.lib.utk.edu/writersinthelibrary.

For further information contact Martha Rudolph, Communications Coordinator, UT Libraries (865-974-4273 or mrudolp2@utk.edu), or Jeff Daniel Marion, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries (dannymar@earthlink.net).

The UT Creative Writing Program announces the winners of its yearly writing contests for students. The 2011 contest winners will read from their award-winning works at an event sponsored by the Creative Writing Program and Writers in the Library. The reading will take place on Tuesday, April 19, at 7 pm in 1210 McClung Tower. Undergraduate winners will read at 7 pm; graduates, at 8 pm. The readings are free and open to the public.

Winners of the undergraduate creative writing prizes are:

ROBERT A. BURKE AWARD FOR FICTION
First Prize: Will McClure for “Keep Driving”
Second Prize: Cynthia Bentley, “When Peace Comes”

ELEANORA BURKE AWARD FOR NON-FICTION
First Prize: Faith Barger, “Survivor’s Guilt”
Second Prize: Stephanie Riggs, “Out to Lunch”

BAIN-SWIGGETT POETRY PRIZE
First Prize: Logan Murphy, “Dive, a Sestina”
Second Prize: Jeremy Brunger, “The Fisherman”

KNICKERBOCKER POETRY PRIZE
First Prize: Allison Yilling, “Cusco”
Second Prize: Ryan Butz, “And Yet”

Winners of the JOHN C. HODGES GRADUATE WRITING PRIZES are:

POETRY
First prize: Josh Robbins
Second prize: Charlotte Pence
Third prize (a tie): Beth Kefauver and Tawnysha Greene

FICTION
First prize: Beth Kefauver, for “Lizard Girl”
Second prize: Tawynsha Greene, “Eskimo Days”
Third prize: Charlotte Pence, “What’s Left Undone”

The graduate writing prizes were endowed by the same long-time UT English professor for whom UT’s John C. Hodges Main Library is named.

Poet/writer Jane Sasser will read from her work at Writers in the Library on Monday, April 11, at 7 p.m. in UT’s Hodges Library Auditorium.

Sasser has published dozens of poems in periodicals such as the North American Review, Atlanta Review, Appalachian Heritage, The Sow’s Ear — and even the Journal of the American Medical Association. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Itinerant from Finishing Line Press (2009) and Recollecting the Snow from March Street Press (2008). Sasser works in other literary forms as well, writing short stories, essays, and novels, and winning awards for both her essays and children’s writing.

Sasser won First Place in Fiction from the Alabama Writers’ Conclave 2009 Literary Competition. Recognition for her poetry has included a First Place at the 2007 Southern Festival of Books and Finalist in the 2010 literary contest held by Still: The Journal.

As a longtime teacher of English and creative writing at Oak Ridge High School, she has inspired and motivated many budding writers.

Sasser’s reading is free and open to the public.

Writers in the Library is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Department of English and the UT Libraries. For further information contact Marilyn Kallet, Director, UT Creative Writing Program (865-974-6947 or mkallet@utk.edu), or Jeff Daniel Marion, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries (dannymar@earthlink.net).

Jeff Daniel Marion will receive the James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South from the Fellowship of Southern Writers during the Chattanooga Arts & Education Council’s (AEC) Conference on Southern Literature, April 14-16. Marion is the Jack E. Reese Writer-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee Libraries.

Jeff Daniel Marion has published eight poetry collections, four poetry chapbooks and a children’s book. Ebbing & Flowing Springs: New and Selected Poems and Prose, 1976-2001 won the 2003 Independent Publisher in Poetry and was named Appalachian Book of the Year by the Appalachian Writers Association. Marion’s newest collection, Father, was published in 2009. From 1975 to 1980, he edited The Small Farm, a distinguished regional poetry journal that he founded. In 1979 Marion received the first Literary Fellowship awarded by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Founded in 1987, the Fellowship of Southern Writers (FSW) is a not-for-profit organization that recognizes and encourages excellence in southern literature. The FSW commemorates outstanding literary achievement, encourages young writers through awards, prizes and fellowships, and recognizes distinction in writing by election to membership.

Humorist and author Roy Blount, a frequent guest on NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” and “Prairie Home Companion,” is among the speakers at the literary festival. Featured writers include novelist Charles Frazier, who received the National Book Award for his novel, Cold Mountain; short story writer and novelist Richard Bausch, 2010 winner of the Dayton Peace Prize; and short story writer Elizabeth Spencer, subject of a documentary that will premiere at the AEC event. Perennial festival favorites — novelists Lee Smith and Clyde Edgerton — will also make presentations during the event.

Other Fellowship prize recipients for 2011 include Gerald Barrax, Elizabeth Cox, Kate Daniels, Jerre Dye, Ernest Gaines, James Hall, Scott Russell Sanders, George Singleton and Minton Parks.

The event will take place April 14 to 16 in the Tivoli Theatre in downtown Chattanooga.

For more information about the conference visit www.SouthernLitConference.org.