The Lee University Writer’s Festival will offer guests presenting a wide range of creative writing genres, including film, fiction and poetry.
The three-day event, hosted by Lee’s Department of English and Modern Foreign Languages, will begin Jan. 20 with A Night of Poetry, presented by Mike Carson, Sarah Kennedy and Chelsea Rathburn in the Edna Minor Conn Theater at 7 p.m.
Novelist Alexandria LaFaye will follow on Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. in the same location. The event will conclude on Jan. 22 with the Sigma Tau Delta Symposium at 9 a.m. in the Humanities Center, followed by a screening of Endings, a film by Chris Hansen, at 2 p.m. in the Edna Minor Conn Theater.
Mike Carson was the first holder of the Melvin M. Peterson Chair in English Literature at the University of Evansville in Indiana, from which he recently retired, where he taught medieval and Renaissance English, specializing in Shakespeare and Milton.
His poems have appeared in many journals, including the Southern Review, Five Points and the New Virginia Review. His collection, The Keeper’s Voice, was published by LSU Press. Dr. Carson earned his PhD from Ohio State University, his MA from Miami University (Ohio) and his BA from the University of Evansville.
Chelsea Rathburn won the 2005 Richard Wilbur Award for her first full-length collection, The Shifting Line, which was published by the University of Evansville Press.
Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic, The Hudson Review, The New England Review and Ploughshares, among other journals and anthologies. In 2009, Ms. Rathburn received a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Sarah Kennedy is the author of six books of poetry, including Home Remedies (LSU Press), A Witch’s Dictionary (Elixer Press), Consider the Lilies (David Robert Books) and Double Exposure (Cleveland State University Press). Individual poems, essays and reviews have appeared widely in literary journals, including Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Arts & Letters, VQR and The Southern Review.
Among her writing awards are The Strousse Award, the Paterson Prize, a Virginia Commission for the Arts grant, and a National Endowment for the Arts award. She is currently an associate professor of English at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Va.
Alexandria LaFaye, an assistant professor of English at Lee University, has established herself in the field of writing for young readers with eleven novels to her credit, including the Scott O’Dell Award winning novel Worth.
She has also written a picture book (Walking Home to Rosie Lee, Cinco Puntos 2011) and a novel in poetry for adult readers (Pretty Omens, in progress).
Chris Hansen is an award-winning screenwriter and director. His films include The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah (Best Feature at several film festivals and screened at the AFI's Dallas International Film Festival and the Virginia Film Festival), and Endings (Best Dramatic Feature at Southern Winds Film Festival and Best Director at Atlanta Underground Film Festival).
Mr. Hansen has also written about narratives in video gaming for Craig Detweiler's book Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God, and he edited the book Ruminations, Peregrinations, and Regenerations: A Critical Approach to Doctor Who. He is Associate Professor and Director of the Film & Digital Media program at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
These sessions are free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Associate Professor of English Kevin Brown at 614-8232 or kbrown@leeuniversity.edu.