This release comes from Montgomery County’s Writers in Performance:
Now in its 18th year, Montgomery County’s Writers in Performance will kick off its spring reading series with award-winning Dallas novelist, Ben Fountain, at 7 p.m., Thursday, February 18 in the Library at Lone Star College-Montgomery, 3200 College Park Drive.
Fountain has garnered some of the nation’s most coveted awards including the O. Henry Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, and the PEN/Hemingway Award. He was formally a writer of short fiction until his first novel, The Texas Itch, was published last year.
Fountain’s Brief Encounters with Che Guevara earlier won the 2007 Hemingway Foundation Award for a distinguished first book of fiction, and Barnes & Noble honored Mr. Fountain with its “Discover Great New Writers Award.” The book also was awarded the prestigious $50,000 Whiting Award.
The featured writer for March is editor/publisher, novelist and poet, Bryce Milligan, author of four historical novels and short story collections for young adults, and five collections of poetry. His thousands of articles, essays and reviews have been published widely in major magazines and literary journals.
Milligan holds an M.A. in language and linguistics (anglo-Saxon and Old Irish) from UT at Austin. Presently, he is editor/publisher of Wings Press. Founded in 1975, this San Antonio-based literary press was recently featured in Poets & Writers magazine as one of America’s finest independent presses.
Milligan will read on Thursday, March 11 at 7 p.m. in the library of LSC-Montgomery.
To celebrate National Poetry Month, April’s guest writer will be poet Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation. A recipient of a McArthur Genius Grant, Hirsch is the author of eight books of poems. His Wild Gratitude received the National Book Critics Circle Award, and his earlier For the Sleepwalkers received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University.
Hirsch will read from his newest book, Living Fire: New and Selected Poems, on Thursday, April 8, at 7 p.m. in the LSC-Montgomery Library.
Concluding the spring season will be the annual celebration of Walt Whitman’s birthday on Thursday, May 20.
There will be two events honoring the poet fondly known as “The Father of American Poetry” and “The Bard of Democracy.”
At 3 p. m in the LSC-Montgomery library, Dr. Michael Robertson, author of Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples, will discuss Whitman’s cult-like following of men and women who regarded him not as a writer but as a religious prophet.
Widely regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on the life and work of Whitman, Robertson is also author of the award-winning book, Stephen Crane: Journalism and the Making of Modern American Literature, and he is co-editor of Walt Whitman, Where the Future Becomes the Present.
Robertson, who received his B.A. from Stanford, his M.A. from Columbia and his Ph.D. from Princeton, is currently professor of English at the College of New Jersey.
At 7 p.m. that evening, there will be the traditional Gathering of Poets featuring some 20 published poets in an open-mic reading, book sale and birthday bash at the Corner Pub on the Square in downtown Conroe.
Since its inception, Writers in Performance has brought to Montgomery County audiences some of the most outstanding literary figures of our times including winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, PEN award and Pushcart Prize as well as Poets Laureate of the United States, Pakistan and several states including Texas.
All events are free and open to the public and feature book-signing receptions. Most are held on the campus of Lone Star College-Montgomery. Annual celebrations of the birthdays of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson feature afternoon seminars at the college followed by “A Gathering of Poets” at the Corner Pub on the Square in Conroe.
Writers in Performance is made possible through the support of the Montgomery County Literary Arts Council, Lone Star College-Montgomery, Conroe Commission on Arts and Culture, Good Books in The Woods, Academy for Lifelong Learning and SWIRL, the literary and arts magazine of LSC-Montgomery College.
For more information, contact Dave Parsons (936) 524-6537.