Featured Writer: Olympia Vernon

VALDOSTA -- The Department of English will be hosting a craft talk and public reading with featured writer Olympia Vernon on Feb. 20-21. Vernon is the critically acclaimed author of three novels.

The Craft Talk will be from 2 - 3:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 20, in Powell Hall Auditorium. This is a wonderful opportunity for anyone interested in writing creatively to listen to a professional writer talk about her process of developing characters and weaving together complex works. Vernon will also respond to specific questions from the audience.

The public reading will be from 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21, in the Student Union Ballroom B. Vernon will give life to her work through her voice, which is as equally moving and complex as her writing.

“Ms. Vernon is the type of writer that when she looks at a tree, she is more interested in its roots more than anything else,” said Dr. Coleman, associate professor of English and African American studies. “When reading her novels, one discovers she digs deep in southern soil long forgotten.”

Her first novel, Eden, won the 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award and was a New York Times New & Noteworthy paperback. Her second novel, Logic, was a USA Today summer pick and was nominated for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in the fiction category. Her third novel, A Killing in This Town, was a New York Times Editor's Choice pick and won the first Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence in January of 2008.

Both events are open to the public. For more information, contact Coleman at (229) 241-6894 or kecoleman@valdosta.edu.