Josephine Humphreys Scheduled for Boone Southern Authors Series

Wilson, N.C. – Barton College will welcome author Josephine Humphreys as the featured speaker for the Joyce T. Boone Southern Authors Series. The lecture will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 30 in The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center at 7:30 p.m. The program is open to the public at no charge, and the community is invited to attend.

Humphreys is the author of four novels including “Dreams of Sleep,” winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for the Best Novel of 1984 and named by the “New York Times” as a Notable Book of the Year; “Rich in Love,” also a Notable Book of the Year, with a film version produced by Richard Zanuck starring Albert Finney and Jill Clayburgh; “The Fireman’s Fair,” also a Notable Book of the Year; and “Nowhere Else on Earth,” winner of the Southern Book Award, a novel based on the true story of the Lumbee Indian outlaw Henry Berry Lowrie.

A native of Charleston, S.C., Humphreys studied writing with Reynolds Price and William Blackburn at Duke University and received a Master of Arts degree from Yale University. She has received various awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and letters, and the Lyndhurst Prize. In 2002, Humphreys was named McGee Professor of Writing at Davidson College and, in 2005, she was named a Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Richmond. She is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

Humphreys and her husband, Tom Hutcheson, live on Sullivan’s Island near Charleston. They have two sons and four grandchildren.

The Joyce T. Boone Endowed Lectureship for Southern Authors was established in memory of the late Joyce Thornton Boone by her husband, Doug Boone. This endowed lectureship supports special programs featuring visiting Southern writers.

Boone graduated from Atlantic Christian College with degrees in business administration (1978) and nursing (1988). An enthusiastic advocate for students and alumni of Barton College, Boone believed in the mission of the small, private, liberal arts college. She served on both the Barton College Board of Trustees and the Barton Alumni Council. Boone was president-elect of the Barton College Alumni Council when she passed away in October 2004.

For additional information about this program, please contact Dr. Kathy James, professor and chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages.

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Questions? Please contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.