WILSON, N.C. – The Barton College Creative Writing Symposium presents the fifth annual Emerging Writers Series on Monday, March 29, and Tuesday, March 30, in The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center on campus. The event is open to the public free of charge, and the community is invited to attend.
The Emerging Writers Series in the Department of English and Modern Languages brings new writers to campus each spring to speak to students and members of the community and to encourage aspiring writers. This year’s featured writers include fiction writer Andrew Geyer and poet Rhett Iseman Trull.
“That’s My Story” workshop, scheduled from 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. on Monday, will provide an opportunity for these emerging writers to discuss their lives, inspirations, influences and craft. An evening reading, featuring the writers’ work, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. On Tuesday, from 9:30 a.m. – 11 a.m. is “Nuts and Bolts,” a workshop where the writers will talk about the practical, business, and technical aspects of writing and publishing.
Geyer’s first novel, “Meeting the Dead,” was released by University of New Mexico Press in April 2007. His debut short story cycle, “Whispers in Dust and Bone” (TTUP 2003) won the silver medal for Short Fiction in the “Foreword Magazine” Book of the Year Awards, and was named a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. One of the stories in the collection won the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America for best work of Short Fiction published in 2003. His new short story cycle and newest book, “Siren Songs from the Heart of Austin,” was recently released in January. Geyer’s fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. A native of Southwest Texas, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of South Carolina, and a Ph.D. in American Literature and Creative Writing from Texas Tech University. He is currently an assistant professor of English at the University of South Carolina Aiken.
Trull won the Anhinga Prize for Poetry for her first book, “The Real Warnings” (Anhinga Press, 2009). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in “The American Poetry Review,” “Best New Poets 2008,” “Prairie Schooner,” “The Southern Review,” and other publications. Her awards include prizes from the Academy of American Poets and the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation. Trull received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University and her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she was a Randall Jarrell Fellow. She and her husband publish “Cave Wall” in Greensboro.
This program has been planned in cooperation with the Department of English and Modern Languages and The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center. For additional information about this event, please contact Dr. Jim Clark, Elizabeth H. Jordan Endowed Chair for Southern Literature and the director of the Creative Writing Symposium, at 252-399-6450 or email: jclark@barton.edu.
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Questions? Please contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.