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.