Monday, October 28, 2019

UNCW’s Department of Creative Writing will host its 20th annual Writers’ Week Nov. 4-8. This week traditionally connects students, faculty and members of the community to discuss the art of creative writing and current issues of the profession. The event also brings esteemed writers and publishing professionals as featured speakers.

“We are fortunate to have such a diverse and gifted group of professionals sharing their talents with our community,” said Mark Cox, professor of creative writing and this year’s event coordinator. Eleven writers – four of them alumni of UNCW’s MFA program – will participate this year by offering a variety of activities geared toward poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Additionally, there will be a special tribute for Phil Furia, a beloved professor and colleague who passed away last spring. 

Among the eleven visiting writers is Oprah Book Club author, Ayana Mathis, who will serve as the keynote speaker. Her debut, critically acclaimed novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, was an Oprah Book Club selection and a New York Times bestseller.

Other visiting authors are Tomás Morín, poet and author of Patient Zero; Inara Verzemnieks, nonfiction writer and author of Among the Living and the Dead; Etaf Rum, fiction writer and author of A Woman is No Man; George David Clark, poet and author of Reveille; Katie Farris, poet and author of Boysgirls; and Cameron Dezen Hammon, nonfiction writer and author of This Is My Body: A Memoir of Religious and Romantic Obsession.

Participants will also get to hear from Beth Staples, former Lookout Books editor and Ecotone senior editor and current editor of famed Shenandoah Magazine. Laurie Corral, director of Asheville Bookworks, will offer a printing workshop; literary agent, Anna Stein, will visit from ICM Partners in New York City. Alumni participants include Adam Gnuse, Katie O’Reilly, Eric Tran and Leah Poole Osowski.

Writers’ Week presentations and panels will be held in the mornings and afternoons, and readings will be in the evenings at 7 p.m. followed by book signings. All events are free and open to the community. For more information and a complete schedule of events, visit uncw.edu/writersweek. 

-- Brea Perry ’20

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