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Mitchell Community College will host the 2013 Doris Betts Spring Writers Festival on Mar. 1 and 2. The event was renamed this year to honor Statesville native Betts, a Southern writer of national prominence and a popular professor of creative writing at UNC Chapel Hill. This year’s festival will feature the diverse talents of some of the best contemporary Southern writers.
Friday, Mar. 1, registration begins at 2 p.m. and the opening session begins at 3:30 p.m. in Shearer Hall.
Joyce Moyer Hostetter reading at 4 p.m. Hostetter has worked with children in public school, camp, church, and homeschool settings. Her debut novel, Blue received the prestigious International Reading Association Children’s Book Award. Set in the city of Hickory, Blue, retells the story of the 1944 polio epidemic in NC. The sequel, Comfort, explores the after-effects of polio and war. Her most recent book, Healing Water, tells the story of a 13-year-old boy banished to Hawaii’s leprosy settlement in 1869. Her books are taught in classrooms across NC.
Elizabeth Evans presentation at 6 p.m. Evans will present The Life and Legacy of Doris Betts in the Montgomery Student Union. Evans, a native of Statesville, earned her doctorate from UNC Chapel Hill. She taught literature at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she served as chair of the English Department. During her career, Evans authored books on writers, including Eudora Welty, May Sarton, Anne Tyler, and Doris Betts. Following Evans, Mitchell student Eric Simonson will read from his works.
Stephanie Powell Watts reading at 7:30 p.m. Watts, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University, received the top prize for African-American writers in 2012, for her collection, We Are Taking Only What We Need. Her work chronicles the lives of young African-Americans who come from, or live near, the “dark houses out on tangled dirt roads on the fringes of the county.” Her stories draw on her experiences in fast food and factory jobs and as a Jehovah’s Witness minister to explore themes of loss, faith, and hope.
Saturday, Mar. 2, registration begins at 9 a.m. in the Main Building. Concurrent writing workshops begin at 10 a.m. with Lynn Kostoff facilitating a fiction writing workshop and Maureen Sherbondy facilitating a poetry craft workshop.
Maureen Sherbondy reading at 11 a.m. in Shearer Hall. Sherbondy is an award-winning poet whose books include After the Fairy Tale, Praying at Coffee Shops, The Slow Vanishing (Main Street Rag), Weary Blues (Big Table Publishing), Scar Girl (Finishing Line Press), and The Year of Dead Fathers (Spring Garden Press). The Year of Dead Fathers garnered the 2011 Robert Watson Poetry Award. Her latest work is Eulogy for an Imperfect Man, is forthcoming from Brick Road Poetry Press.
Lynn Kostoff reading at 1:30 p.m. in Shearer Hall. Kostoff is the author of critically acclaimed and popular crime fiction novels, including A Choice of Nightmares (New Pulp Press), Late Rain (Tyrus Books), and The Long Fall (Tyrus Books). He is completing a new novel, The Work of Hands. Kostoff is Professor of English and Writer-In-Residence at Francis Marion University in Florence, SC and has taught at Indiana State University and the University of Alabama. He earned his MFA in Fiction from Bowling Green State University.
The festival will conclude with a Writers Panel discussion at 2:30 p.m.
Participation is free but pre-registration is required for the writing workshops. There is an optional dinner on Friday evening at a cost of $8 per person. Lunch Saturday is on your own.
For a complete schedule, visit www.mitchellcc.edu. For more information and to register, contact Ben Butler, bbutler2@mitchellcc.edu, (704) 978-1322, or Ben Pressley bpressley@mitchellcc.edu, (704) 878-4349.
The festival is funded in part through a grant from the NC Arts Council Grassroots Arts Program through the Iredell Arts Council and the Mitchell Community College Endowment for Excellence.