Writers' Café: Landscapes in Peril: Writing About Place In 2018

March 23, 2018 - 3:30pm to 5:30pm

Writers' Café
Landscapes in Peril: Writing About Place In 2018

Doug Van Gundy and Marc Harshman will examine the charge of the poet to bear witness to and document the various ways in which the landscape of our nation is under threat. 

Reading from their own work and that of other Appalachian writers, they’ll share their experience of being poets from a region so long under assault from exploitative industries.  They will then challenge participants with a pair of writing prompts designed to elicit close observation of place and generate empathy for—and solidarity with—the land and its people.

Marc Harshman’s fourteenth children’s book, "Fallingwater", co-written with Anna Smucker, has just been published by Roaring Brook/Macmillan. His poetry collection, "Believe What You Can", was published in 2016 by West Virginia University Press and won the Weatherford Award from the Appalachian Studies Association. Periodical publications include "The Georgia Review", "Salamander", "Shenandoah", "Chariton Review", and "Poetry Salzburg Review". Poems have been anthologized by Kent State University, the University of Iowa, University of Georgia, and the University of Arizona. An invited reader at the 2016 Greenwich Book Festival in London, he recently read with Doug Van Gundy at the Red House Arts Centre, in Wales. He is the seventh poet laureate of West Virginia.

Doug Van Gundy teaches in both the BA and MFA writing programs at West Virginia Wesleyan College.  His poems, essays and reviews have appeared in many journals, including "The Oxford American", "Ecotone", "Appalachian Heritage", and "Poetry Salzburg Review".  He is co-editor of the anthology "Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Contemporary Writing from West Virginia", and is currently working on a follow-up to his debut poetry collection, "A Life Above Water".


For more details about this event and others visit the Writers' Café website

Questions, contact Barbara Edelman or Sarah Leavens, the Writers' Café coordinators, via email or at 412-624-6556.

Location and Address

Writing Center
317B O'Hara Student Center

Event Type

Lecture
Schools:
Schools & Colleges: 
Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business