Fourth Mondays, 7:00 PM at Chicora Alley
August 22
John Lane’s prose books include The Best of the Kudzu Telegraph (2008), Circling Home (2007), Chattooga (2004), Waist Deep in Black Water (2002), and Weed Time (1992), a gathering of his early essays. His Abandoned Quarry: New & Selected Poems (Mercer University Press) and his book length narrative My Paddle to the Sea (University of Georgia Press) are both out in 2011. In 2008 the Texas Tech University library purchased his literary papers for inclusion in the James Sowell Family Collection in Literature, Community, and the Natural World. Lane is co-founder of The Hub City Writers Project and Director of Wofford College’s Goodall Environmental Studies Center, where he teaches environmental writing and humanities. His website is www.kudzutelegraph.com
Arthur McMaster writes short stories, poems, and stage plays. His poetry and fiction have appeared in such lit magazines as Poetry East, Wisconsin Review, Emrys Journal, North American Review, and Subtropics. His poetry chapbook Awkwardness was selected in 2009 by the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Poetry Initiative. His latest volume of poetry, The Spy Who Came Down with a Cold, is due out from Finishing Line Press in September. Arthur teaches creative writing and literature courses at Converse College.
September 26
Matt Matthews, author of the novel Mercy Creek, grew up in Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay. He studied journalism at Virginia Commonwealth University, then attended Union Seminary in Richmond, VA. Mercy Creek was selected by Bret Lott as the winner of the biennial South Carolina First Novel Contest; Lott called it “refreshing, entertaining, and meaningful.” Matt, who lives in Greer, serves as pastor at St. Giles Presbyterian Church in Greenville and is also the author of a children’s book, Fritz and Christine and Their Very Nervous Parents. He is married to Rachel Matthews and they have three sons. www.mattmatthewscreative.com/
Before turning to writing, Man Martin wrote and drew the syndicated comic strip, ”Sibling Revelry” for Universal Press. His first novel, Days of the Endless Corvette, won the Georgia Author of the Year for First Novel. His new novel, Paradise Dogs, was published in June of 2011. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Nancy, and teaches high school English. www.manmartin.net/
October 24
Jessica Handler’s first book, Invisible Sisters: A Memoir (Public Affairs, 2009) has been named by the Georgia Center for the Book as one of the “Twenty Five Books All Georgians Should Read,” and is one of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s “Eight Great Southern Books in 2009.” Atlanta Magazine called it the “Best Memoir of 2009.” Her nonfiction has appeared widely, including on NPR, in Tin House, Newsweek, The Washington Post, More Magazine, Southern Arts Journal, and Ars Medica. She is on the faculty at the Art Institute of Atlanta. Her website is www.jessicahandler.com.
Ellyn Bache began as a freelance newspaper journalist while teaching herself to write fiction. After nearly six years of rejection slips, her short stories began to be published in both commercial magazines like Good Housekeeping and Seventeen, and literary magazines ranging from Shenandoah to the Carolina Quarterly. A collection of sixteen of her stories, The Value of Kindness, won the Willa Cather Fiction Prize. Ellyn’s first novel, Safe Passage, about a family back home waiting to hear the fate of a son at the site of a terrorist bombing, was later made into a film starring Susan Sarandon and Sam Shepard. Her second novel, published in June, is The Art of Saying Goodbye. After more than twenty years in Wilmington, NC, Ellyn now divides her time between the Carolinas and Pennsylvania. Her website is http://ellynbache.com
The Emrys Reading Room Fall Schedule is funded in part by a grant from the Metropolitan Arts Council, which receives funding from the City of Greenville, BMW Manufacturing Company, LLC, Michelin North America, Inc., SEW Eurodrive and the South Carolina Arts Commission with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of SC.