Kentucky's Poet Laureate to speak Oct. 1
Kentucky’s Poet Laureate Gurney Norman will read from his work and answer questions as part of Morehead State University’s Reading Series at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 1, at Breckinridge Hall, room 2. The event is free and open to the public.
In addition, students accepted into MSU’s newly formed Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program also will read. Student readers include Ben Faulkner, Stacey Greene, Jonathan Lounsberry, Sean Corbin, Misty Skaggs, Sosha Pinson, Brandon Massengill, Charles Wagner and Adam Doran.
MSU’s BFA Program provides students the opportunity to work with accomplished faculty members who are working writers through studio-oriented creative writing workshops in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Other successful writers come to campus as guest readers and lecturers. Students also are provided a solid foundation of literature courses and complete general education courses in the humanities, the natural and social sciences and foreign languages. Candidates for graduation complete a creative thesis and are required to participate in a public reading from their work.
During the past 30 years, Norman has been a major force in the literary and cultural renaissance throughout the state and region. He played a significant role in the founding of the Appalachian Poetry Project and helped establish the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative. A charter member of the Hindman Settlement School's annual Writers Workshop faculty, he continues to be involved as a senior writer-in-residence.
Norman was born in Grundy, Va., in 1937 and was raised alternately by his maternal grandparents in western Virginia and his paternal grandparents in eastern Kentucky. After graduating from Stuart Robinson School in Letcher County, he attended the University of Kentucky from 1955-60 majoring in journalism and English.
He then studied writing at Stanford University as a Stegner Creative Writing Fellow. He returned to Kentucky and joined the English Department faculty at the University of Kentucky. Director of the UK Creative Writing Program, Norman will soon complete his 39th year of teaching.
MSU’s Reading Series is sponsored by: MSU Arts and Humanities Council; the Caudill College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; Department of English; the Kentucky Folk Art Center, and Morehead State Public Radio.
Additional information is available by calling the Department of English at (606)
783-2185 or emailing Chris Holbrook c.holbrook@moreheadstate.edu or Crystal Wilkinson at c.wilkinson@moreheadstate.edu.
Posted: 9-25-09
