Sherry Chandler » 2006 Jesse Stuart Writing Symposium
2006 Jesse Stuart Writing Symposium
The 2006 Jesse Stuart Writing Symposium will be held at Murray State on March 1 in the Freed Curd Auditorium, Industry & Technology Center
Keynote address at 3:30 by Hal Crowther. I know Crowther best from his “Dealer’s Choice” column in The Oxford American. Those essays, published in a collection called Cathedrals of Kudzu (LSU Press, 2000), have won the Lillian Smith Book Award, the Fellowship Prize for Non-Fiction from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year prize for essays. Cathedrals has been nominated for a Pulitzer – Crowther’s 7th Pulitzer nomination – and a National Book Award. His latest collection of essays, Gather at the River (LSU Press, 2005) has also been nominated for a National Book Award. I know Crowther is highly supportive of regional literature, because I myself have felt his presence at the Appalachian Writers Workshop at Hindman and the Appalachian Writers Association meetings.
His talk will be followed by a panel discussion with Crowther and Lee Smith.
And at 7:30, Lee Smith will read. If by any chance, you haven’t had a chance to hear Lee Smith read, I can assure you it’s a treat! I first encountered Lee at the Woman Writers Conference a few moons ago where she described herself as “the voice of poor white trash.” After that I had to run out and buy every work of hers I could find. They did not disappoint. I’d rather have a quiet afternoon with a Lee Smith novel than just about anything. Lee has won a 1999 Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Robert Penn Warren Prize for Fiction, the Lila Wallace / Readers Digest Award, the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Literature, and two O. Henry Awards for short fiction. Her latest novel, The Last Girls (Shannon Ravenel Books, 2002), was a co-winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. Lee is, of course, the goddess of the Appalachian Writers Workshop and mentor to Kentucky’s own Silas House.
Although I don’t see it on the schedule, my correspondents tell me that there will be a reception after the reading, too.
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2 Comments
1. Charlie replies at 16th February 2006, 12:28 pm :
Sherry,
I’d rather have a quiet afternoon with Lee herself, and Hal too, of course.
I can’t be more adamant — Those of you within driving distance of this event — GO TO IT.
2. Brooks Carver replies at 17th February 2006, 8:59 am :
I love Lee Smith’s work as well as Hal’s in the Oxford American. I’ll be there.
Brooks
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