Conroy and Banks join eight other award-winning writers at the festival’s readings, panel discussions and book signings Monday, April 7, through Thursday, April 10, on campus. Most events are free and open to the public.

“Pat Conroy and Russell Banks are among the first-rate authors and poets converging on our sixth annual literary festival, which features one of the most diverse line-ups so far,” said Mary Adams, festival director and associate professor of English. “The festival has grown so much that we are moving most of our events to a larger auditorium on campus. We have had inquiries from all over the Southeast about this wonderful series.”

Conroy (pictured above right), who claims he was “raised by Scarlett O’Hara,” draws from his own experiences in novels that depict domineering fathers and tragedy. Three of his novels, “The Price of Tides,” “The Great Santini” and “The Lords of Discipline,” have been adapted into feature films. Conroy will speak at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 9, in the recital hall of the Coulter Building.

Two books by Banks (pictured below right), whose WCU festival appearance is part of the Lectures, Concerts and Exhibitions Series, also were made into motion pictures – “Affliction” and “The Sweet Hereafter.” Banks currently is working on a screenplay for his novel “Rule of the Bone.” His presentation at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 10, in Coulter recital hall will conclude the festival.

The annual event also brings to campus Lee Smith, who grew up in the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia. When Smith was 9 years old, she began writing and selling stories about her neighbors for a nickel each. Her novel “On Agate Hill” was Western North Carolina’s 2007 Together We Read selection.

Other featured authors include Mexican-American Dagoberto Gilb, who spent 16 years working in construction before he was able to work full-time as a writer and creative writing professor, and Sarah Lindsay, author of “Primate Behavior,” which was a finalist for the National Book Award.

The festival’s award-winning poets include Joseph Bathanti, who authored novels “East Liberty” and “Coventry;” Thomas Lux, whose books include “Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy” and “The Glassblower’s Breath;” Gloria Vando, a poet as well as a Latino publisher, editor and founder of the nonprofit literary press Helicon Nine Editions; and Carolyn Beard Whitlow, a poet, visual artist and quilter featured in the 1997 PBS series “Poetry Live.”

“This year also marks Western’s first for hosting the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series, in which a well-known poet works and performs with emerging student poets,” said Adams. At the festival, distinguished poet Cathy Smith Bowers will present with Caleb Beissert, a WCU junior from Charlotte, Tom Lambert of Watauga High School in Boone and Haley Jones of North Iredell Middle School in Statesville.

To accommodate the festival’s growth this year, some events have been moved from the theater on the third floor of A.K. Hinds University Center, which seats 167, to the recital hall on the second floor of the Coulter Building, which seats 450.

WCU Literary Festival events free and open to the public are:

• Monday, April 7 – 4 p.m. discussion led by novelists Lee Smith, “On Agate Hill,” and Ron Rash, “The World Made Straight”; 7:30 p.m. reading by Smith followed by dramatization with dulcimer performance (Coulter).
• Tuesday, April 8 – 4 p.m. poetry reading by Thomas Lux; 7:30 p.m. reading by author and commentator Dagoberto Gilb (University Center).
• Wednesday, April 9 – 4 p.m. panel of poets Joseph Bathanti, Sarah Lindsay and Carolyn Beard-Whitlow; 7:30 p.m. reading by novelist Pat Conroy (Coulter).
• Thursday, April 10 – Noon poetry presentation by Cathy Smith Bowers and emerging student poets (University Center); 4 p.m. poetry reading by Gloria Vando (Coulter); and 7:30 p.m. reading by novelist Russell Banks (Coulter).

Festival-goers such as Amanda Kagan, a sophomore from Gwinnett County in Georgia, said hearing a range of authors read their own works led her to enjoy literature she had not been interested in before.

For Kendra Coker, a senior from Flat Rock, the annual event is an opportunity to learn more about and get to meet, in person, writers and poets who are expressing “the true voice of America.”

Sponsors are the English department; Visiting Scholars Fund; Office of the Chancellor; Office of the Provost; Lectures, Concerts and Exhibitions Series and the Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Culture. This project was supported by the North Carolina Arts Council with funding from the state of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art

For festival information, call (828) 227-7264, e-mail Adams at madams@email.wcu.edu or click on the Web at http://www.litfestival.org/.

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Last modified: Tuesday, March 18, 2008