Emory Report

 June 23, 1997

 Volume 49, No. 34

Annual writer's festival
features four regional voices

July 1 marks the beginning of the Creative Writing Program's annual Summer Writers' Institute, which will run through August 8. A highlight of the institute is the Summer Writers' Festival July 15-17 featuring readings and a panel discussion on "Becoming a Writer" by four regional authors: Judith Ortiz Cofer, Anthony Grooms, Nancy Peacock and Dorothy Shawhan.

The Summer Writers' Festival schedule is as follows with all events free and open to the public in 205 White Hall:

An associate professor of English and creative writing at the University of Georgia, Cofer is the author of the novel The Line of the Sun, a collection of essays and poetry titled Silent Dancing, two books of poetry and a short story collection titled An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio, selected a Best Book of the Year (1995-96) by the American Library Association.

Grooms is a writer who reflects the rich and often humorous ironies of growing up in the South during the Civil Rights movement. He is the author of Ice Poems and Trouble No More, a collection of stories that won the Lillian Smith Prize for Fiction in 1996. His work also has appeared in Callaloo, African American Review, The George Washington Review and Catalyst. He is an associate professor of creative writing at Kennesaw State University.

Peacock's colorful background has included jobs tending bar, milking cows, sewing costumes and teaching writing. A resident of Chapel Hill, N.C., she is the author of the novel Life Without Water, selected by the New York Times as one of the Notable Books of 1996.

Tupelo, Miss., native Shawhan is the author of the novel Lizzie, a by-product of her research into Mississippi women's history. Her work also has appeared in Old Hickory Review, Piedmont Literary Review, Phoebe and Tapestry. She is the chair of the division of languages and literature at Delta State University.

Judson Mitcham, director of the institute, will conduct a six-week fiction workshop designed to develop and sharpen writers' skills as editors of their own work, particularly during the revision process. The institute offers four credit hours to undergraduate, graduate and visiting students.

Mitcham, who is an adjunct professor of creative writing at Emory as well as the chair of the psychology department at Fort Valley State College, is an award-winning author whose accolades include the Pushcart Prize, a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Devins Award for his poetry collection, Somewhere in Ecclesiastes. His most recent work is the novel The Sweet Everlasting, published by the University of Georgia Press.

For more information or to register for the Summer Writers' Institute, call 727-4683.

-Deb Hammacher


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