Vanguard

Issue date: 3/3/08 Section: News

Famous novelist Robert Morgan from Cornell University will be at the University of South Alabama the week of March 3-8.
The South Alabama English department has planned an event opened to the public in which Morgan will be lecturing and reading for four days on campus.
Morgan is a Kappa Alpha professor of English at Cornell University, a novelist, poet, a writer of non-fiction and of creative works and a biographer. He recently won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award and is also the recipient of a Guggenheim, and national endowment for the Arts fellowship.
Additionally, Morgan received the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association's R. Hunt Parker Award for "Significant Contributions to the Literature of North Carolina." He is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship and the James G. Haines Poetry Prize by the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He received NEH grants in 1974, 1981 and 1987. Talk show host Oprah chose his novel "Gap Creek" as one of her book club featured novels.
This is not Morgan's first appearance on the USA campus. Morgan first came to USA to visit because he grew up in the same area as Dr. Pat Covey, USA's vice president of academic affairs.
Dr. Covey along with chair of English department Dr. Sue Walker worked together in planning Morgan's visit.
"I am excited that our students and the community at large will be able to learn about writing of fiction, poetry and non-fiction from someone of Morgan's stature," Walker said. "Morgan shows by example how one person can excel as a professor, a novelist, a poet and a biographer. It is a rare opportunity to be able to study a range of genres from one of American's finest writers."
Morgan's visit will begin with a lecture on the Essentials of Fiction Writing on March 4 from 3:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. in the Humanities Building, room 150. A lecture on poetry writing will follow on March 5 in the same room and same time. A reading and lecture in honor of Dr. Covey will take place in the Laidlaw Center for the Performing Arts on March 6 at 7 p.m. and the lectures will end with a speech on the Art and Craft of Biography in the USA Library Auditorium on March 7.
"Students are exposed to some of the finest writers both in the United States and abroad," Walker said. "Since they cannot take a week out of the semester to travel to Cornell or to the University of California, Davis, scheduling guest lectures and mini courses allows students an opportunity to expand their educational experiences."
Lectures by famous novelists such as Robert Morgan are all due to the contributions of the new Stokes Center of Creative Writing.
"The endowment, a gift of Dr. Steven Stokes and his wife, Angelia, provides scholarships in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, but it will sponsor lectures and workshops throughout the academic year that allows students an opportunity to expand their educational experiences," Walker said.
Because of the Stokes Center of Creative Writing, Dr. Patricia Foster, a professor at the University of Iowa, taught a course in creative nonfiction in the fall 2007 semester.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools