Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Acclaimed Poet Jack Myers will be the keynote speaker for the Fall 2008 Writers' Week Symposium, sponsored by the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Myers, who has published 17 books of and about poetry, will read from his work at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 5 in Dobo Hall 134.

Writers' Week, which takes place Nov. 3­–7, brings together visiting writers of local and national interest, UNC Wilmington students and members of the general public with an interest in literature and writing. Activities throughout the week will include workshops, panels, readings and manuscript conferences.

Jack Myers was the 2003 Texas Poet Laureate and is a professor of English and former director of the creative writing program at Southern Methodist University, where he has taught poetry writing since 1975, and a former member of the faculty at Vermont College's graduate writing program. He has received visiting poet and poet-in-residence distinctions from several universities and has served as poetry editor for Cimarron Review, Fiction International and, currently, for TEX! In addition to his books, he has published hundreds of individual poems in journals such as American Poetry Review, The American Scholar, Esquire and Poetry.

Myers' honors include the Violet Crown Award from the Writers League of Texas for The Glowing River: New and Selected Poems, named Best Literary Book of 2001 and a National Poetry Series Selection. He has twice been granted awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Texas Institute of Letters. He is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Creative Writing.

Other visiting writers, editors and agents for the 2008 Writers' Workshop include David Wright, Oni Buchanan, Karen Outen, Marianne Gingher, Christina Thompson and Stanley Colbert. Biographies of these guests and descriptions of their work, as well as a detailed schedule of Writers' Week events, are available on the Department of Creative Writing Web site, www.uncw.edu/writers/news_calendar.html .

All events are free and open to the public. Receptions sponsored by the department and book signings sponsored by Pomegranate Books will follow readings.

For further information on UNCW's programs and events in creative writing, please contact the Department of Creative Writing at 910.962.7063.