10/15/97
ATHENS, Ohio -- Ohio University will host public readings by four nationally known writers two alumni and two faculty members as part of a literary benefit at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24 in 194 Irvine Auditorium on the Athens campus' West Green.
The annual Writers Harvest event is coordinated by Share Our Strength, one of the nation's largest hunger relief organizations, and is being presented locally by the university's Program in Creative Writing. Proceeds from donations at the door will be distributed to the Southeastern Ohio Foodbank.
Ohio University graduates Wendell Mayo and Dave Smith will join faculty members Darrell Spencer and J. Allyn Rosser in reading from their work. Donations will be accepted one hour before the program.
Readings featuring hundreds of the country's most distinguished writers have occurred across the United States to benefit Share Our Strength and hunger relief since 1992.
Mayo, an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at Bowling Green State University, was a finalist in the Associated Writing Programs Award Series in Short Fiction for his short story collection, Centaur of the North. He completed his doctoral studies at Ohio University in 1991. Smith, a 1976 Ohio University doctoral graduate, has published more than two dozen collections of poetry, essays and fiction. The winner of several awards, he is an English professor at Louisiana State University and co-editor of the literary magazine Southern Review.
Spencer, new to the university's creative writing faculty this year, has written two collections of short stories. His work has appeared in Gettsyburg Review, Prairie Schooner and other literary publications. Rosser, a visiting poet at the university, won the 1990 Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize for her book Bright Moves. She has won a Pushcart Prize and the Lvan Award from the Academy of American Poets.
Writers will be available to sign their books, which will be for sale at a reception following the reading.