Contact: Maridith Geuder
The author of the best-selling novel "Gap Creek," an Oprah Book Club selection, will share both excerpts from his work and observations about writing Thursday [March 27] at Mississippi State University.
Robert Morgan, whose 2000 novel about turn-of-the-century Appalachian life won a Southern Book Award, will read at 7:30 p.m. in the Colvard Union small auditorium.
The free event is jointly sponsored by the English and history departments, as well as the University Honors Program.
On Friday, Morgan will visit with students enrolled in a spring-semester history seminar titled "Readers and Writers in American History: From Puritan Diaries to Oprah's Book Club."
An English professor at Cornell University since 1971, Morgan has published five other books of fiction, including "The Hinterlands" (1994) and "The Truest Pleasure" (1999) and 10 volumes of poetry. His most recent novel, "This Rock," also is set in the Appalachian region.
A North Carolina native, Morgan holds a bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master's in fine arts from the UNC-Greensboro.
He has published widely in magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, Yale Review, and Carolina Quarterly. Four National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the North Carolina Award for Literature are among his many honors.
For more information about Morgan's MSU visit, telephone (662) 325-3644.