Pee Dee Fiction & Poetry Festival features award-winning authors

Pee Dee Fiction & Poetry Festival features award-winning authors

The eighth annual Pee Dee Fiction & Poetry Festival at Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C., will bring to campus five nationally known and award-winning authors on Nov. 7 and 8. The two-day festival will celebrate the works of Tom Franklin, Allison Joseph, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Evie Shockley and Jane Yolen.

The event is held in Cauthen Educational Media Center’s Lowrimore Auditorium and is free and open to the public. There will be readings, lectures and panel discussions for participants. A number of fiction and poetry topics will be covered, and there will be opportunities for book signings.

This year’s authors provide a variety of voices in poetry and fiction, said FMU faculty chair and English professor Rebecca Flannagan, who, along with Dr. Jo Angela Edwins, organized the event with a committee of faculty members from the Department of English.

“These authors have written in varied genres, tackling themes of identity, historicity and social responsibility,” said Flannagan. “Some of the authors share commonalities but the festival strives to showcase diverse ways of looking at the world through writing.”

The Pee Dee Fiction and Poetry Festival originated in 2006 as the Pee Dee Fiction Festival, the brainchild of FMU President Luther F. Carter. Now an annual autumn event coordinated by members of the English faculty, the festival has expanded to include poets as well as fiction writers.

Visit peedeefiction.org for more about the featured writers and to view the complete schedule.

Via: Francis Marion University