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Department of English to Hold Reading Of Works Feb. 5
released: 01/28/04
Four faculty members of West Virginia Wesleyan’s Department of English will read from their own recent creative work at a reading to be held in Nellie Wilson Lounge on Thursday, February 5 at 7 p.m.

Each reader teaches writing in Wesleyan’s Department of English, which offers a specialization track of study for students who wish to pursue a career in writing.

Sharing her current work with the audience will be Dr. Irene McKinney, West Virginia’s Poet Laureate, author of four books of poetry. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including a National Education Association (NEA) fellowship in poetry. Dr. McKinney is the editor of the anthology Backcountry: Contemporary Writing in West Virginia from West Virginia University Press. West Virginia University will bring out her latest book of poems Vivid Companion in October of 2004.

Also reading will be Dr. Devon McNamara. She is a contributing editor to the Hiram Poetry Review, has received a YADDO fellowship, completed many residences in Poets-in-the-Schools programs in West Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, as well as other states, and directs a May Term tour of the Republic of Ireland for Wesleyan students. Her interviews of writers have appeared frequently in The Christian Science Monitor. She will read from her manuscript entitled Driving.

Richard Schmitt is the author of the widely-praised novel The Aerialist, which has gone through five printings and was included in the Barnes & Noble Discovery Series. His short fiction has been honored by a first prize in the Mississippi Review’s Short Story contest in 1997 and was anthologized in New Stories of the South: The Year’s Best 1999. His short fiction has also appeared in Flyway, Puerto del Sol, Marlboro Review and Flying Horse Magazine. He was awarded a NEA fellowship in 2002. Schmitt will read from his new novel set in Kodiak, Alaska.

Dr. Mark DeFoe, Chair of the English department, will offer poems from his new chapbook The Green Chair. The author of five books of poems, Dr. DeFoe’s work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies and college texts, including Poetry, Kenyon Review, Yale Review, Paris Review, North American Review, and Sewanee Review. In 1998 and 2003, Dr. DeFoe was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the WV Commission on the Arts.

The reading is free and open to the public. Nellie Wilson Lounge is located in Benedum Residence Hall on the Wesleyan campus. For more information about West Virginia Wesleyan’s Department of English, please visit their website at http://www.wvwc.edu/aca/eng/engfront.htm.