2012-2013 Authors

All Visiting Writers events are free and open to the public.
No tickets are required.
 

An Evening with Nicholas Sparks

Thursday, September 6, 2012
P. E. Monroe Auditorium, 7:00 pm

Nicholas Sparks, a North Carolinian and international best-seller, is romance's best known author. He has written 16 novels and one memoir. 80 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide and translated into more than 45 languages. USA Today applauds Sparks's ability to "generate authentic emotional power" in his writing. Seven of his novels, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, The Last Song, and The Lucky One (released April 20, 2012) among others, have been made into box-office hits starring actors such as Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Richard Gere, Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus, Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum, and Ryan Gosling. Sparks and Harry Potter's J. K. Rowling are the only two contemporary authors to have a novel spend more than a year on the New York Times hardcover and paperback best-seller lists. Although he writes at least 2,000 words a day, he is an avid athlete who runs 30 miles a week and reads an average of 125 books a year. He contributes to many local and national charities and is a major sponsor for the University of Notre Dame's Creative Writing program. Publishers Weekly praises his most recent novel The Best of Me: "Sparks's ability to capture the truths of this affair makes the story both heartfelt and heartbreaking. It's quite possibly his best work in years."

Publications:
The Best of Me (2012)
Safe Haven (2010)
The Last Song (2009)
The Lucky One (2008)
The Choice (2007)
Dear John (2007)
At First Sight (2006)
True Believer (2005)
The Wedding (2005)
Three Weeks with My Brother (2004)
The Guardian (2003)
Nights in Rodanthe (2003)
A Bend in the Road (2001)
The Rescue (2000)
Message in a Bottle (1998)
The Notebook (1996)
A Walk to Remember (1992)

Website:
www.nicholassparks.com

 

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An Evening with Nicholas Carr

LRU 2012 Campus Read
Thursday, September 27, 2012
P. E. Monroe Auditorium, 7:00 pm

Nicholas "Nick" Carr is the author of the influential book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. He is a writer of technology, culture, and economics. USA Today calls Carr the "Paul Revere of our Net age." The Shallows was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction and a finalist for the 2011 PEN Center USA Literary Award. An international best-seller, The Shallows has been published in 23 different languages. Carr is also the author of two more provocative books, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008) and Does IT Matter? (2004). Carr has been a columnist for the Guardian in London and has written for the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London, the New Republic, the Financial Times, and other periodicals. His essay "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" has been collected in several anthologies, including The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best Spiritual Writing, and The Best Technology Writing. He writes a popular blog called Rough Type and has been the writer-in-residence at the University of California, Berkley. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University.

Nicholas Carr will appear at the LRU Center for Graduate Studies of Asheville on Friday, September 28, 2012. For more information visit asheville.lr.edu.

Publications:
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
Does IT Matter?
 

Websites:
www.nicholasgcarr.com
www.roughtype.com

 

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An Evening with Bernice L. McFadden

Thursday, October 18, 2012
Belk Centrum, 7:00 pm

"I write to breathe life into memory." New York writer Bernice L. McFadden is the author of fourteen critically acclaimed and award-winning bestselling novels, including Sugar and The Warmest December, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Nowhere Is a Place was a Washington Post Best Fiction book for 2006. McFadden is a two time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist for fiction, as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Awards. She takes cues from writers and influences such as Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ann Petry, and Rita Dove. Her most recent novel Gathering of Waters (2012) has been called "a kind of miracle" by the New York Times Book Review. Her novel Glorious (2010) was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in Fiction and selected for the debut of "One Book, One Harlem" program. Oprah applauded Glorious and featured it in O Magazine. McFadden's work has been praised by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison as "searing and expertly imagined."

Honors and Awards:
2007 Short-listed for the Hurston Wright Legacy Award in Fiction (Nowhere is a Place)
2002 Nominated for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (The Warmest December)
2002 Short-listed for the Hurston Wright Legacy Award in Fiction (The Warmest December)
2002 Zora Neale Hurston Society Award for Creative Contribution to Literature
2001 Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Fiction Honor Award (Sugar)
2001 Black Writer's Alliance, Gold Pen Award, Best Mainstream Fiction (Sugar)

Publications:
Gathering of Waters
Glorious
My Name is Butterfly (2012)
Nowhere is a Place (2006)
Camilla's Roses (2004)
Loving Donovan (2003)
This Bitter Earth (2002)
The Warmest December (2001)
Sugar (2001)

Websites:
www.bernicemcfadden.com
www.firstborngirl.blogspot.com

 

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An Evening with Marie Howe

Thursday, November 1, 2012
P. E. Monroe Auditorium, 7:00 pm

Marie Howe is an acclaimed poet and teacher. She is the author of three volumes of poetry, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (2009); What the Living Do (1998); The Good Thief (1988), which internationally celebrated poet Margaret Atwood selected for the 1987 National Poetry Series. Howe is also the co-editor of a book of essays entitled In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic (1994). Her most recent book, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize. Before receiving her MFA from Columbia University in 1983, Howe worked as a newspaper reporter and teacher. The poet Stanley Kunitz has called her poetry "luminous, intense, and eloquent, rooted in an abundant inner life." Kunitz selected her for a Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets in 1988. Among many awards, Howe has received grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Bunting Institute, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Boston Globe describes her work as a "poetry of intimacy, witness, honesty, and relation." She has taught creative writing at Tufts University and Dartmouth College, among others. Currently, she teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and Columbia University. Howe says, "Every poem holds the unspeakable inside it. The thing that you can't really say because it's too complicated. It's too complex for us. Every poem has that silence deep in the center of it."

Publications:
The Kingdom of Ordinary Time
What the Living Do
The Good Thief
In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic

Website:
www.mariehowe.com

Reviews:
www.blueflowerarts.com/marie-howe

 

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An Evening with John Burnham Schwartz

Thursday, February 7, 2013
Belk Centrum, 7:00 pm

Accomplished novelist and screen writer, John Burnham Schwartz resides in Brooklyn, New York. Northwest Corner (2011), his fifth and most recent novel, has been praised by Publishers Weekly: "Imaginative and taut, Schwartz's writing is seamless and infinitely inspiring." His work has been domestically and internationally popular and translated into more than 20 languages. He is a recipient of a Lyndhurst Prize for mastery in the art of fiction. His journalism has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, the Boston Globe, and Vogue. Schwartz has taught fiction writing at Harvard, the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, and Sarah Lawrence College. He is the literary director of the Sun Valley Writers Conference, which is one of the leading literary festivals in the United States. Reservation Road, a best-seller published in 1998, was made into a major motion picture in 2007. The filmed starred Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Connelly. Since writing the screen play for Reservation Road, Schwartz has written screen adaptations for Sony Pictures and Lionsgate. Currently, he is writing an HBO film about Bernie Madoff, which will star and be produced by Robert De Niro.

Publications:
Northwest Corner
The Commoner (2008)
Claire Marvel (2002)
Reservation Road
Bicycle Days (1989)

Website:
www.johnburnhamschwartz.com

 

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An Evening with Sandra Beasley

LRU Spring 2013 Writer-in-Residence
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Belk Centrum, 7:00 pm

Sandra Beasley, poet and nonfiction writer, is LR's Spring 2013 Visiting Writer-in-Residence. Her debut collection of poems titled Theories of Falling (2008) was selected by Marie Howe as winner of the 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize. Her second collection of poetry, I Was the Jukebox (2010) won the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize. In 2011, she published her memoir: Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life. Publishers Weekly hails Beasley's writing as "intelligent and witty [and] thoughtful." Her nonfiction work has appeared in venues such as the Washington Post Magazine and The Oxford American. Many journals and anthologies have featured her poems, including POETRY, The Believer, and the 2010 edition of The Best American Poetry. Honors for her work include the 2012 Larry Neal Writers Award from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH); an Artist Fellowship from DCCAH; the 2010 University of Mississippi Summer Poet-in-Residence fellowship; 2008 Maureen Egen Exchange Award from Poets and Writers. Beasley lives in Washington D.C., where she received her MFA from American University. Along with teaching classes, she will be using her time at LR to work on her third collection of poetry tentatively titled Count the Waves.

Honors and Awards:
The 2009 Friends of Literature Prize
The 2006 Elinor Benedict Prize

Fellowships:
LegalArt
Jentel Artist Residency
Sewanee Writer's Conference
Vermont Studio Center
Virginia Center for Creative Arts
Millay Colony for the Arts

Publications:
Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life
I Was the Jukebox
Theories of Falling

Websites:
www.sandrabeasley.com
www.sbeasley.blogspot.com

 

 

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Special Event: Joshua Bennett

Friday, March 22, 2013
Belk Centrum, 7:00 pm

Joshua Bennett is an award winning performance poet from Yonkers, NY. He has recited his original work at events such as The Sundance Film Festival, The NAACP Image Awards,  President Obama’s Evening of Poetry and Music at the White House, the ESPN documentary One Night in Vegas,  Clinton Global Citizen Awards,  and alongside former U.S. Poet Laureates Billy Collins and Rita Dove at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ.

In addition, he was a featured poet on the original cast of the HBO series Brave New Voices.  Joshua also was commissioned to create an original work for Ralph Lauren’s  RUGBY ad campaign, The Rugby Poets Club and Reebok’s online magazine, We R Classic.

An alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania, Joshua graduated with the distinctions of Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, after double majoring in English and Africana Studies. In addition to receiving a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, Joshua was also awarded a Marshall Scholarship and earned his Masters of Arts in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Warwick in the UK. He is currently pursuing a PhD in English from Princeton University.

 

 

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An Evening with Philip Schultz

Thursday, April 4, 2013
P. E. Monroe Auditorium, 7:00 pm

Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Schultz is a poet, fiction writer, and teacher. He is the founder of the Writers Studio, a private New York City poetry and fiction writing school. Schultz is the author of several collections of poetry, including Failure (2007), winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize, The God of Loneliness: New and Selected Poems (2010), Living in the Past (2004), and The Holy Worm of Praise (2002). He recently published his memoir, My Dyslexia (2011). Schultz is also the author of Deep within the Ravine (1984), which was a recipient of the Academy of American Poets Lamont Prize, and Like Wings (1978), a winner of an American Academy & Institute of Arts and Letters Award and a National Book Award Finalist. His book Living in the Past was selected for the 2005 New York Public Library List. Schultz has taught undergraduate and graduate fiction, poetry, and literature at Tufts University, Kalamazoo College, University of Massachusetts at Boston, Columbia University, and New York University. Before founding the Writers Studio in 1987, he was the director of the graduate-level creative writing program at New York University. Acclaimed writer Norman Mailer describes Schultz as "one of the very best [writers] of his generation."

He will also appear at the LRU Center for Graduate Studies of Asheville on April 3, 2013. See asheville.lr.edu for more information.

Publications:
My Dyslexia
The God of Loneliness: New and Selected Poems
Failure
Living in the Past
The Holy Worm of Praise
Deep within the Ravine
Like Wings

Fellowships:
Fullbright Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship (2005)
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1981)
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (1985)

Websites:
www.writerstudio.com/pages/page.php?page=director

Reviews:
www.blueflowerarts.com/philip-schultz

 

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An Afternoon with Cynthia Lord

The Little Read 2013 Author
Saturday, April 13, 2013
P. E. Monroe Auditorium, 12:00 noon

Children's novelist and picture-book writer, Cynthia Lord brightens the literary world with her heartwarming tales. She published her first novel, Rules, in 2006 for a middle-grades audience. This debut novel won the Newberry Honor Medal and the Schneider Family Book Award, among eight other awards nationwide. Rules was nominated for a Kids' Choice Award in 40 states. Publishers Weekly praises Rules as "appealing [and] entirely convincing. . . . A rewarding story that may well inspire readers to think about others' points of view." Lord published her second children's novel, Touch Blue, in 2010. Book Page listed it as the Best Children's Book of 2010 and Bank Street College starred it as the Best Children's Book of the Year 2011 for its "outstanding merit." Lord and New York Times best-selling illustrator, Derek Anderson, have teamed up and written two picture-books together: Hot Rod Hamster (2010), a finalist for the 2011 Children's Choice Book Award, and Happy Birthday, Hamster (2011), Bank Street College's 2012 Best Children's Book of the Year. Kirkus Reviews admires their work: "Newbery Honor author Lord's picture-book debut is a rollicking, roaring read . . . . Anderson's fluffy, jaunty illustrations are as full of energy as the rhymes."

Publications:
Happy Birthday, Hamster
Hot Rod Hamster
Touch Blue
Rules

Website:
www.cynthialord.com