Kestrel Issue 30 Launch Celebrates Writing
Kestrel: A Journal of Literature and Art, the Fairmont State University Department of Language and Literature and the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center will host a two-day Celebration of Issue 30 in October.
Eight contributors to Kestrel, including six whose work appears in Issue 30, will be on campus to participate in a panel discussion and offer individual consultations for writers, as well as give readings from their own work.
On Friday, Oct. 25, from 1 to 1:50 p.m. in Jaynes Hall Room 307, Dr. Donna Long will moderate a panel discussion on “Connecting Creative Writing & Writing in the World.” Admission to the event is free and open to the public.
Following the panel, individual consultations will be available for student and community writers from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. in the study rooms at the Ruth Ann Musick Library. Participants will submit work beforehand to a poet or fiction writer, who will read the work and offer detailed feedback during a 30-minute private consultation. Consultations are $25, and a limited number of student scholarships are available. Individual consultations are also available on Saturday, Oct. 26, from 9:45 to 10:15 a.m.
On Friday evening, Kestrel will host a reception and readings at the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Featured writers include Errol Miller, Liane Ellison Norman, John Swetnam and Lynnell Edwards. Admission to this event is free and open to the public.
On Saturday, Oct. 26, readings and book-signings will take place at Heston Farm Winery from 2 to 4 pm. Featured writers include Lesley Wheeler, Alicia Wright, Lowell Mick White and Kelly McQuain. Light fare will be served. Admission to this event is free and open to the public.
For more information about events or to register for a consultation, contact Dr. Donna Long at donna.long@fairmontstate.edu. For more information about the visiting writers offering individual consultations, visit www.fairmontstate.edu/kestrel.
Visiting writers for the Kestrel 30 Celebration include the following:
- Lynnell Edwards is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently “Covet” (Red Hen Press, 2011). Her short fiction has appeared in such publications as “New Madrid,” “Exit Seven” and “Connecticut Review,” and she is a regular book reviewer for “Pleiades” and “Rain Text.” She lives in Louisville, Ky., and is an associate professor of English at Spalding University.
- Visiting writer Kelly McQuain grew up surrounded by West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest. His poems have been featured on National Public Radio and in such journals as The Pinch, Painted Bride Quarterly, Mead, Paper Nautilus and Assaracus. He writes columns on city life for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Learn more at www.KellyMcQuain.wordpress.com.
- Errol Miller lives in West Monroe, La., and has published extensively since 1972, including previously in Kestrel and in American Poetry Review, Harpur Palate, Arkansas Review and Southern Humanities Review. He was a feature artist in the 2000 Poet’s Market and is the author of over 30 books of poetry.
- Liane Ellison Norman has a chapbook, “Driving near the Old Federal Arsenal,” published by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in 5 AM, the North American Review, Kestrel, The Fourth River and Grasslimb, as well as in other anthologies. She has published two books of poetry, “The Duratino of Grief” and “Keep,” as well as a biography, a novel and many articles, essays and reviews.
- John Swetnam is emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He has published fiction in Proteus and the Berkeley Fiction Review. He is currently revising a novel set in Guatemala.
- Lesley Wheeler’s poetry collections include “The Receptionist and Other Tales” (2012) and “Heterotopia” (2010), winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize. She is the Henry S. Fox Professor of English at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. Her blog, “The Cave, the Hive,” explores poetry’s possible worlds (lesleywheeler.org).
- Lowell Mick White is the author of two novels, “Professed” and “That Demon Life,” and a story collection, “Long Time Ago Good.” He has been awarded the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Institute of Letters, and until recently was the NEA writer-in residence at the federal prison for women in Bryan, Texas. He is Assistant Professor of English at Pittsburgh State University.
- Alicia Wright is a student at Marietta College. She has poetry published in Marietta’s “Pulse,” Hiram College’s “Student Echoes” and West Virginia Writers’ “Seeking the Swan.”
