UNCW Writers' Week marks 20th year

Writers' Week at the University of North Carolina Wilmington turns 20 years old this fall, and the creative writing department at UNCW will be celebrating again, Nov. 4-8.

Once again, an array of novelists, poets, editors and literary agents will be gathering on campus for a week of lectures, readings and panel discussions. (Four of the authors, according to Writers' Week coordinator Mark Cox, are UNCW alumni.)

All events are free and open to the public. Almost all are centered in the Fisher Student Center. (For a complete schedule, see uncw.edu/writersweek)

The keynote address will be delivered by novelist Ayana Mathis, author of the New York Times best-seller: “The Twelve Tribes of Hattie," at 7 p.m. Nov. 7 in the Fisher Center's Lumina Theater.

The story of an African-American woman heading north with the Great Migration of the 1920s, "Twelve Tribes of Hattie" was an Oprah Book Club selection and one of National Public Radio's Best Books of 2013.

Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her appearance doubles as this year's UNCW Buckner Lecture.

The Nov. 5 program will feature readings by Cameron Dezen Hammon, author of "This is My Body: A Memoir of Religious and Romantic Obsession," and essayist Inara Verzemnieks, author of "Among the Living and the Dead." "This is My Body" is the latest publication from Lookout Books, the creative writing department's literary imprint, and the Nov. 5 program will include an official launch for the book.

Poets Katie Farris and George David Clark will give a reading at 7 p.m. Nov. 4 in the Fisher Center's Azalea Coast Room. Both have work that has appeared in Ecotone, the UNCW literary journal.

Poet Tomas Morin and novelist Etaf Rum ("A Woman is No Man") will give readings at 7 p.m. Nov. 6 in the Fisher Center.

Daytime programs include a tribute to the late Phil Furia, a former chairman of the creative writing department and creator of WHQR’s “The Great American Songbook,” at 2 p.m. Nov. 4 in the Azalea Coast Room.

Anna Stein, a literary agent with ICM partners, will give a talk at 12:30 p.m. Nov. 5 in the Azalea Coast Room. Former Ecotone editor Beth Staples, who is now the editor of Shenandoah Magazine, will give an editors' talk at 12:30 p.m. Nov. 7, also in the Azalea Coast Room.