Featured image for post: Barton Hosts Ann Pancake for Joyce T. Boone Southern Authors Series on September 21

Barton Hosts Ann Pancake for Joyce T. Boone Southern Authors Series on September 21

WILSON, N.C. — Barton College welcomes Ann Pancake, featured author for this year’s Joyce T. Boone Southern Authors Series Lecture. The event will be held Monday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. in Hardy Alumni Hall on the College’s campus. The lecture is open to the public at no charge, and the community is invited to attend. Copies of Pancake’s books will be available for purchase at the event.

A West Virginia native, Pancake grew up in the towns of Romney and Summersville. “Strange As This Weather Has Been,” her first novel, was one of Kirkus Review’s Top Ten Fiction Books of 2007; won the 2007 Weatherford Award; and was a finalist for the 2008 Orion Book Award. The book was also selected as Barton’s First-Year Seminar Summer Reader for 2015. Her new short story collection, “Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley,” was released in February. Another collection of short stories, “Given Ground,” won the 2000 Bakeless award, and she has also received a Whiting Award, an NEA Grant, a Pushcart Prize, and creative writing fellowships from the states of Washington, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Her fiction and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies including “The Georgia Review,” “Poets and Writers,” “Narrative,” and “New Stories from the South.”

Pancake earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at West Virginia University, and a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Washington. She now lives in Seattle and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University.

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 more information, contact Dr. Jim Clark, dean of the School of Humanities, and Elizabeth H. Jordan Endowed Chair for Southern Literature, at (252) 399-6450 or jclark@barton.edu.

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