USC Fall Literary Festival 2017 to be held October 26, 31, and November 9

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The University of South Carolina’s Fall Literary Festival, now in its 18th season, brings three major authors to campus over the course of a few weeks every year. This fall authors Terrance Hayes (Oct. 26), Richard Michelson (Oct. 31.), and Lydia Millet (Nov. 9) visit campus.

Terrance Hayes, a native of Columbia, will read Thursday, October 26. The author of five books of poetry, Hayes is one of the most original and compelling voices in American poetry today. His work explores identity, race, experience, and spirituality. Lighthead, his fourth collection, was described as a “dazzling mixture of wisdom and lyric innovation” in its National Book Award in Poetry 2010 citation. His Wind in a Box won a Pushcart Prize; Hip Logic was a winner of the National Poetry Series; and Muscular Music, won both the Whiting Writers Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award.

Hayes is the recipient of many other honors and awards, including a 2014 MacArthur Foundation Genius Award, eight Best American Poetry selections, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines, including The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, and Poetry. In 2017, he was named the new poetry editor at The New York Times Magazine. He is a professor and co-director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics at the University of Pittsburgh.

All readings begin at 6 p.m. and are held in the Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library, which is entered through Thomas Cooper Library.

The festival is co-hosted by University Libraries and the Department of English, and sponsored by a generous anonymous donor, allowing each program to be free and open to the public.

Learn more at http://library.sc.edu/p/fallfestival.

Upcoming Event

Image of Jennifer Boykin Boyd

Jennifer Bartell Boykin, Poet Laureate of Columbia, SC

April 25, 2024, 6:00 PM
Join the South Carolina State Library's Center for the Book for our next Speaker at the Center Author Talk, featuring Poet Laureate of Columbia, SC, Jennifer Bartell Boykin. She will discuss her debut book of poetry, Traveling Mercy, and her upcoming release, Only Believe (The Word Works), a winner of the 2023 Hilary Tham Capital Collection.