Clemson writers to read in benefit for Upstate food program

Published: November 3, 2010

CLEMSON — Some of Clemson University’s most-honored writers and poets will read in a campus benefit for Loaves and Fishes at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11, in the Marshall E. Walker Family Auditorium in Vickery Hall. The list of performers includes Keith Lee Morris, Jillian Weise, John Pursley III, John Warner, Sarah Blackman and Mike Pulley.

“This benefit is particularly important considering the impact of the recession on the less fortunate among us in the South Carolina Upstate,” said reader Mike Pulley, a poet who organized this year’s Writers’ Harvest at Clemson. “Please attend and help feed our needy children.”

Writers’ Harvest readings are staged each year during the holiday season by writers and poets throughout the United States. The benefits were first launched by Share Our Strength, a national organization that works hard to make sure no child in America grows up hungry.

To gain admission to the reading, the writers request a donation of canned goods or cash. Checks made out to Loaves and Fishes Inc. will be accepted.

Keith Lee Morris has published two novels, “The Greyhound God” and “The Dart League King,” as well as two collections of short stories, “The Best Seats in the House and Other Stories” and “Call It What You Want.” Morris won the 2005 Eudora Welty Prize, and his latest novel, “The Dart League King,” garnered a Starred Review and Pick of the Week in Publishers Weekly. He is an associate professor in creative writing in Clemson’s English department.

Jillian Weise is the author of a book of poems, “The Amputee's Guide to Sex,” and a novel, “The Colony.” Her essay, "Going Cyborg," appeared in The "New York Times" earlier this year. She has won fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center and the Fulbright Program and her work was chosen for "Poetry Everywhere," an animated film series produced by PBS and The Poetry Foundation. She teaches workshops, seminars and survey courses on 20^th- and 21^st- century American literature at Clemson.

John Pursley III is author of a book of poems, “If You Have Ghosts,” and three previous chapbooks of poetry, “Supposing, for Instance, Here in the Space-Time Continuum,” “A Conventional Weather” and “When, by the Titanic.” A new chapbook, “A Story without Poverty,” will be released later this year. He teaches at Clemson.

John Warner teaches creative writing and literature at Clemson and is the author of three books, “So You Want to Be President?” “Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice from a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant” and “My First Presidentiary” (with Kevin Guilfoile).

Sarah Blackman is author of the chapbook “Such a Thing as America,” which won the Burnside Review chapbook contest in 2009. She is the co-fiction editor at DIAGRAM and director of creative writing at the Fine Arts Center, a public magnet arts high school in Greenville.

Mike Pulley received a 2008 Pioneer Poet award from the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, a 2005 Dominic J. Bazzanella Award for expository prose, and a 2004 Kathryn Hohlwein Award for poetry from California State University, Sacramento. He teaches advanced writing and contemporary literature at Clemson.

For more information, contact Loaves and Fishes at www.loavesandfishesgreenville.org or the Clemson University English department at 864-656-3151.

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