President Rose to Host Reading by Two Campus Authors at Shaw House
Dr. Maria Rose, Fairmont State University Interim President, will host a reading by faculty authors at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, at the Shaw House on the shared main campus of FSU and Pierpont Community & Technical College. Dr. Elizabeth Savage, Professor English at FSU, and Debbie Benedetti, Associate Professor of English and Academic Studies at Pierpont, will read from their new works.
Savage’s "Jane & Paige or Sister Goose, Twenty-Four Women & Girls" was published this month by Furniture Press in Baltimore. Savage’s poetry chapbook traces relationships among friends, sisters, mothers, daughters, rivals, sweethearts, role models, mentors and apprentices. In poems that take up and manipulate a range of traditional forms and devices. These poems honor the many ways women and girls matter to one another.
The cover features original artwork by Jodi Hoover, and the poems appear on lustrous ivory paper. Editor Christophe Casamassima personalizes each of the Press’s publications in innovative variants on conventional formatting. In "Jane & Paige or Sister Goose," the dedications page is slipped under the book’s center seam by hand, locating and concealing the heart of the work.
Sherry Chandler says of Savage’s new collection, “If the poems in 'Jane & Paige' aren’t easy (for me), they are compelling. They are poems of the head and of the heart, and I think one must engage both head and heart to read them.”
Benedetti’s "Season of Play" was published in May by Headline Books. Since then, it has received the Mom’s Choice Award. Illustrated by Ashley Teets, Benedetti’s book collects games and rhyming texts to return students to the outdoor games of the 1950s and ‘60s.
An anonymous review notes, "Benedetti’s whimsical verses tell of ordinary children, playing ordinary outdoor games, as well as playing board games, reading, and spending time with their parents. There is not a computer or cell phone in sight, just friends, family and fun time spent both indoors and out.”
Savage serves as the poetry editor of Kestrel, Fairmont State’s literary and art journal. She was winner of the University’s Straight Faculty Development Award. Benedetti is the writing coordinator at Pierpont. She has won the College’s Edwards Award for Teaching Excellence.
EnglishCollege of Liberal ArtsMaria RoseLanguage & LiteratureElizabeth SavageDebbie BenedettiChristophe CasamassimaJane & Paige or Sister GooseTwenty-Four Women & Girls
