A free event that is open to the public, the forum takes place each Thursday while classes are in session beginning at 8 p.m. in Orange Main Lounge on the St. Andrews campus.
Dr. Ted Wojtasik and Dr. Edna Ann Loftus of St. Andrews College will be the co-coordinators for this year's event, replacing St. Andrews Writer-in-Residence Ron Bayes. The emeritus publisher of the St. Andrews Review and the St. Andrews College Press, Bayes began the Writer's Forum in 1968.
"We invite the community to join us for a season of poetry and prose readings in which the audience will experience a variety of forms," Wojtasik said. "Come to be entertained, and come to enjoy the unique use of language, especially in the poetry readings. We will have something for everyone."
The season begins with a "welcome back" open mic on Sept. 2, a traditional event that allows those in attendance to share five to seven minutes of their work with the audience.
The next two Thursdays will feature readers Becky Gould Gibson, a professor Emeritus of English and Women's Studies at Guilford College, and Michael Smith, who recently accepted a position at Delta State University. Smith has published his poetry in magazines such as Free Verse, The Iowa Review, The Notre Dame Review and Salt. Gibson has written several books of poetry, including Need Fire, Aphrodite's Daughter and Off-Road Meditations.
The following Thursday will feature a return reading from poet and novelist Joseph Bathanti.
"Joseph Bathanti, a professor at Appalachian State University, is a good friend of the college who has read here numerous times," Wojtasik said, adding that Bathanti considers Bayes a personal mentor. "We are very pleased to have him returning to be a part of this year's Forum."
Bathanti is the author of four books of poetry, including the National Book Award nominee, This Metal, and two novels, East Liberty and Coventry. His collection of short stories, The High Heart, was the 2008 One Book, One Community selection at St. Andrews and received the 2006 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction.
The second of the six scheduled open mics follows on Sept. 30. After a week's hiatus for fall break, Wojtasik will be the featured reader as part of the 2010 St. Andrews One Book, One Community event on Oct. 14. His novel, No Strange Fire, is the selection.
A scheduling change will bring author Gary Gildner to St. Andrews on Oct. 26. From Idaho's Clearwater Mountains, Gildner has received the National Magazine Award for Fiction, a Pushcart Prize, and the William Carlos Williams and Theodore Roethke poetry prizes. Among his works are Blue Like the Heavens and The Second Bridge.
Bayes will be the featured reader on Nov. 11. The long term St. Andrews faculty member has a variety of published works including The Casketmaker, Porpoise, Kings of August, and the 1985 Pulitzer Prize nominated Beast in View. He has earned the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Roanoke-Chowan Prize for Poetry, the North Carolina Writers' Network Lifetime Achievement Award which is now named in his honor, and the North Carolina Writers' Conference Award.
Open mics on Nov. 18 and Dec. 2 will close out the semester.
For information about the St. Andrews Writers' Forum, call the St. Andrews Press Office at 277-5310 or email sapress@sapc.edu.
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