The Seventh Annual Pee Dee Fiction and Poetry Festival at Francis Marion University will bring to campus four nationally known and bestselling authors on Nov. 8 and 9. The two-day festival will celebrate the works of Todd Boss, Danielle Evans, Nikky Finney and Larry Watson.
The event is free and open to the public. There will be readings, lectures and panel discussions for participants. A number of fiction and poetry topics will be covered and there will be opportunities for book signings.
"The event will allow for dynamic and personal interactions between authors and readers as they share the joy of reading and writing," FMU Faculty Chair and English Professor Rebecca Flannagan said. Flannagan and a committee of faculty members from the English Department have organized the event.
About the authors:
Todd Boss is an American poet. He published his first collection of poetry Yellowrocket in 2008 and received rave reviews. Yellowrocket was named one of the ten best poetry books of 2008 by the Virginia Quarterly Review and was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. Mr. Boss has received a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board and a residency with the Ragdale Foundation. He has also been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes. His new book, Pitch, was published in 2012.
Danielle Evans is the author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, a collection of short stories that has received numerous awards and recognition including being named the co-winner of the 2011 PEN American Robert W. Bingham Prize for a first book. For this collection she also received a National Book Foundation 5 under 35 selection for 2011, and was named the winner of the 2011 Paterson Prize for Fiction and the 2011 Hurston-Wright award for fiction. She also received an honorable mention for the 2011 PEN/Hemingway award. Ms. Evans has been published in The Paris Review, Callaloo, and Phoebe, as well as other magazines and journals.
Nikky Finney a poet originally from South Carolina, received the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry for her collection entitled Head Off & Split. Some of her other titles include The World Is Round, Rice, and On Wings Made of Gauze. Ms. Finney is also an inductee in the Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent and a recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Award sponsored by the Independent Booksellers Association.
Larry Watson is a notable American novelist and poet. He has written several novels including In a Dark Time, Montana 1948, White Crosses, Laura, Orchard, American Boy, and Sundown, Yellow Moon. He also authored the fiction collection Justice and a book of poetry, Leaving Dakota. Mr. Watson has received numerous awards including the Friend of American Writers Award, New York Public Library Fiction Award, The High Plains Book Award and the Milkweed National Fiction Prize. He has received multiple Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.
To learn more about the Pee Dee Fiction & Poetry Festival, please visit http://www.peedeefiction.org/.
