2011-2012 JAMES AND MARY OSWALD
DISTINGUISHED WRITERS SERIES
Department of English – University of South Carolina Aiken
To commemorate USCA’s fiftieth anniversary, the Department is pleased to welcome back two writers who were featured in the series in
previous years but who have, since then, carved out careers in new genres for which they have achieved a significant level of recognition.
John Lane
Tuesday, October 25, 2011, 8 p.m.
Main Stage, Etherredge Center
&
John Lane first visited USCA in 1995 as part of a
multi-campus poetry tour entitled “Against
Information.” Since then, in addition to his
continuing engagement with verse composition, he
has become a significant environmental essayist and
chronicler of the American landscape. Such books as Waist
Deep in Black Water (2002), Chattooga: Descending into
the Myth of Deliverance River (2004), and Circling Home (2008) have made his readers look
more closely at the world around them, especially the richly textured landscape of the
American South. His new book to be published this fall, My Paddle to the Sea, combines an overview
of important Southeastern water issues with an entertaining personal narrative of a kayak trip from his backyard in
Spartanburg three hundred miles to the Atlantic Ocean through the Broad/Congaree/Santee River Basin.
Ron Rash
Tuesday, February 28, 2012, 8 p.m.
Main Stage, Etherredge Center
The 1998-99 USCA Writers’ Series featured Ron Rash in
his original incarnation as an Appalachian poet, the author of
the highly acclaimed Eureka Mill (1998). Although he
still continues to write poetry—in fact, his new collection
entitled Waking will be published by Hub City Press this spring
— Rash has carved out a major reputation as a writer of
Southern fiction with such novels as One Foot in Eden (2002), Saints at the River (2004),
The World Made Straight (2006), and Serena (2008). His latest short story collection entitled Burning Bright
won the prestigious Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award (Ireland) in 2010. That same year,
Ron Rash was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors, our state’s literary hall of fame.
Both events are free and open to the public. For more information on the series, please contact Dr. Tom Mack, Department of
English, USC Aiken, 471 University Parkway, Aiken SC 29801, email: tomm@usca.edu.
2011-2012 JAMES AND MARY OSWALD
DISTINGUISHED WRITERS SERIES
University of South Carolina Aiken
471 University Parkway
Aiken, SC 29801
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