Presenting the Clemson
Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Presented by The Greenville News
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Festival Sponsors
Presenting Sponsor: The Greenville News
Clemson University:
College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities
English Department
Performing Arts Department
Brooks Center for the Performing Arts
Strom Thurmond Institute
Center for Electronic and Digital Publishing
Friends of The South Carolina Review
Children’s Literature Symposium
City of Clemson
The Arts Center
Clemson University Bookstore
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Steve Almond
Steve Almond grew up in Palo Alto, California, and
studied at Wesleyan University and the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro. He has taught
creative writing at Boston College and Emerson
College and spent seven years as a newspaper
reporter in El Paso and Miami. His short stories
have appeared in Zoetrope, Tin House,
Ploughshares, Playboy, and many other periodicals.
Selected Works:
My Life in Heavy Metal (stories)
The Evil B.B. Chow (stories)
Candyfreak: Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of
America (nonfiction)
Which Brings Me to You (novel; with Julianna Baggott)
Not That You Asked (essays)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Catharine Savage Brosman
Catharine Savage Brosman was born in Colorado
and spent most of her childhood there and in TransPecos, Texas. She studied at Rice University and in
France and is now a chaired professor emerita of
French at Tulane University, New Orleans.
Brosman’s poetry and stories have been published
widely in the U.S., England, and France. She has
been a frequent contributor to Clemson University’s
literary journal, The South Carolina Review,
beginning with the journal’s second issue in 1969.
Selected Works:
Essays: The Shimmering Maya and Other Essays;
Finding Higher Ground: A Life of Travels
Poetry: Watering; Journeying from Canyon de Chelly;
Passages; Places in Mind; The Muscled Truce; Range of
Light
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Wayne Chapman
Festival co-organizer
Wayne Chapman is Professor of English at Clemson
University. He is the founding director of the Center for
Electronic and Digital Publishing and executive editor of
Clemson University Digital Press. He is also the author of
a number of books and articles on such writers as W. B.
Yeats, James Joyce, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, James
Dickey, Virginia Woolf, and Leonard Woolf. Chapman has
edited The South Carolina Review since 1996.
Selected Works:
Yeats and English Renaissance Literature
The W. B. and George Yeats Library: A Short-title Catalog
An Annotated Guide to the Writings and Papers of Leonard
Woolf (with Janet M. Manson)
“The Countess Cathleen” : Manuscript Materials
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Kim Chinquee
Kim Chinquee, a native of Green Bay, Wisconsin,
teaches creative writing at Central Michigan
University. She has a particular penchant for hypershort stories known as “flash fiction.” Each flash
fiction piece gives a brief glimpse into a seemingly
ordinary event whose significance the reader must
ponder.
Chinquee’s published work includes flash fiction,
short stories, novels, nonfiction, and poetry. Over
two hundred of her works have been published in
various journals, and she won the Pushcart Prize in
2007.
Selected Works:
Oh, Baby! (flash fiction; forthcoming, March 2008)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Brock Clarke
Brock Clarke hails from upstate New York. He
currently directs the creative writing program at the
University of Cincinnati, where he is the founding
editor of the Cincinnati Review. Clarke’s writing has
earned him many awards, and his stories and essays
have appeared in publications too numerous to list
here. When previously on the English and Creative
Writing faculty at Clemson University, he served as
fiction editor for The South Carolina Review.
Selected Works:
An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England
(novel)
What We Won’t Do (stories)
Carrying the Torch (stories)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Frank Day
Professor Emeritus Frank Day was born in
1932 in East Parsonsfield, Maine. He taught at
Clemson University for more than three
decades and was Head of the English
Department from 1994 to 1997. The author of
books, articles, and essays on authors as
diverse as Melville, Balzac, DeLillo, and
Naipaul, Day served as an editor of Clemson
University’s literary journal, The South Carolina
Review, for nearly twenty years.
Selected Works:
Sir William Empson: An Annotated Bibliography
A Reader’s Guide to Arthur Koestler
Melville’s Use of “The Rebellion Record” in His
Poetry
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Camille Dungy
Camille Dungy is an assistant professor in the creative
writing program at San Francisco State University. She has
been the recipient of various fellowships and awards, and
her writing has appeared in numerous literary journals and
other publications, including The Missouri Review, Crab
Orchard Review, The Mid-American Review, Poetry Daily,
Tarpaulin Sky, and at fishousepoems.org. Dungy is a
graduate of Stanford University and earned her MFA
degree at the University of North Carolina—Greensboro.
Selected Works:
What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison (poetry)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers’s first book, A Heartbreaking Work of
Staggering Genius, earned him tremendous critical acclaim
and commercial success and made Eggers a 2001 Pulitzer
Prize finalist. In addition to having authored numerous works
of fiction and nonfiction, Eggers is the founder of
McSweeney’s, an independent publisher. He also runs a
writing lab, called 826 Valencia, where he teaches writing to
high school students and runs a publishing program in the
summer.
Selected Works:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (memoir)
What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng
(novel)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Skip Eisiminger
Sterling “Skip” Eisiminger is a seasoned writer as well
as a professor emeritus of English and humanities at
Clemson University. While teaching at Clemson, Skip
earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of South
Carolina under the direction of poet James Dickey.
Over the past few years, Eisiminger has written or
edited three monographs for Clemson University
Digital Press, including Integration with Dignity, a book
about Clemson’s peaceful approach to desegregation
in 1963, and Felix Academicus, an anthology of
essays and poems. Eisminger has also published over
25 reviews, poems, and personal essays with The
South Carolina Review.
Selected Works:
Integration with Dignity (nonfiction; edited)
Felix Academicus (essays)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
John Idol
John L. Idol is a fourth-generation native of the Blue
Ridge region whose writing focuses on the work of
Thomas Wolfe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. He has
written or edited twelve books and penned dozens of
articles on these two writers, in addition to serving terms
as editor of the Thomas Wolfe Review and the
Nathaniel Hawthorne Review. A professor emeritus at
Clemson University, where he taught for over thirty
years, Idol is also the author of award-winning novel
Blue Ridge Heritage.
Selected Works:
Hawthorne and Women: Engendering and Expanding the
Hawthorne Tradition (edited, with Melinda M. Ponder)
Blue Ridge Heritage: An Informal History of the Family of John
Nicholson Idol (novel)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Major Jackson
Major Jackson is an established poet and a
professor of English and creative writing.
Jackson has published his poetry in the
American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Callaloo,
Post Road, Triquarterly, and The New Yorker,
among many other anthologies and journals. An
award-winning writer, his poems have attracted
national attention. Currently, Jackson is a fellow
at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at
Harvard University as well as a professor at the
University of Vermont.
Selected Works:
Hoops (poetry)
Leaving Saturn (poetry)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Bill Koon
A South Carolina native and a professor of English at
Clemson University, where he teaches courses in
American and southern literature, Bill Koon is the author
of Hank Williams, So Lonesome, a biography about the
life and music of the country music legend. Formerly
head of the English department, Koon was a Fulbright
Professor in southern studies to Austria and director of a
National Endowment for the Humanities Institute on
southern studies. Along with his duties at Clemson
University, he writes a weekly column for the Greenville
Journal, usually on southern topics.
Selected Works:
Hank Williams, So Lonesome (biography)
Classic Southern Humor (anthology; edited)
Old Glory and the Stars and Bars (anthology; edited)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Laurence Lieberman
Laurence Lieberman is a professor of English at
University of Illinois. He has published fourteen books of
poetry and three books of criticism. His poems have
appeared widely in numerous journals and anthologies.
Lieberman’s poetry was featured in the spring 2006 and
fall 2007 issues of The South Carolina Review, and the
covers of those numbers were graced with reproductions
of such art by Barbados painter Ras Ishi as inspired the
poems.
Selected Works:
Carib’s Leap: Selected and New Poems of the Caribbean (poetry)
Hour of the Mango Black Moon (poetry)
Flight from the Mother Stone (poetry)
Beyond the Muse of Memory: Essays on Contemporary American
Poetry (criticism)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Karon Luddy
Karon Luddy grew up in Lancaster, South Carolina,
then moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, which has
become her second hometown, and where she
worked for over twenty-five years in sales and
marketing. During a mid-life renaissance, Luddy left
her corporate job to focus on writing. In 2002, The
South Carolina Review published her first short story,
“And Here’s To You, Mrs. Robinson.” In May 2005,
she received her MFA in Creative Writing from
Queens University as well as a book contract for her
first novel. Her first poetry collection, Wolf Heart, was
published by Clemson University Digital Press in
2007.
Selected Works:
Spelldown (novel)
Wolf Heart (poetry)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Kevin McIlvoy
Kevin McIlvoy is the editor-in-chief of the literary
magazine Puerto del Sol. His teaching at New Mexico
State University has won awards; he also teaches in the
creative writing program at Warren Wilson College.
McIlvoy is the author of several novels, and his short
stories have appeared in such literary journals as The
Southern Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, The
Missouri Review, and Chelsea.
Selected Works:
A Waltz (novel)
The Fifth Station (novel)
Little Peg (novel)
Hyssop (novel)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Michelle Martin
Festival co-organizer
Michelle Martin is an associate professor in the
English department at Clemson University and
Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, as well
as a writer on various topics, her foremost being
children’s literature and African American studies. In
addition to her two book-length works, Martin’s
scholarship has appeared in numerous literary
journals and scholarly publications.
Selected Works:
Brown Gold: Milestones of African American Children’s Books
Sexual Pedagogies: Sex Education in Britain, Australia, and
America, 1879-2000 (co-edited)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Richard Michelson
Whether as a poet or a children’s author, Richard
Michelson proves that talent cannot be limited by medium.
As a poet, Michelson has won numerous awards and was a
finalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize. As a children’s author,
his acclaim may be even greater: Michelson is the winner of
a New Yorker Best Book Award and a Children’s Book
Committee Book of the Year. He is also known for his
collaborations with artist Leonard Baskin, experiences
which he recounts in the forthcoming issue of The South
Carolina Review (spring 2008).
Selected Works:
Battles and Lullabies (poetry)
Too Young for Yiddish (children’s)
Masks (poetry)
Semblant (poetry)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Ronald Moran
Ronald Moran spent his youth in the Northeast but has
lived much of his life in the South. He spent twenty-five
years as a member of Clemson University’s faculty,
assuming numerous positions before retiring in 2000. An
award-winning author, Moran has published nine books of
poetry, and his poems and essays are frequently
published in journals and magazines. He has been a
regular contributor to The South Carolina Review ever
since Volume 1 appeared in 1968.
Selected Works:
Sudden Fictions (poetry)
Getting the Body to Dance Again (poetry)
Diagramming the Clear Sky (poetry)
Saying These Things (poetry)
The Blurring of Time (poetry)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Keith Morris
Festival co-organizer
Keith Lee Morris is a professor of creative writing at Clemson
University. He is also the author of one novel (with a second
in the works) and an anthology of short fiction. His stories
have appeared in numerous publications—including New
Stories from the South, The Sun, Ninth Letter, and The New
England Review, among others—and his work was recently
recognized with a Eudora Welty Prize in fiction. Morris is the
fiction editor for The South Carolina Review.
Selected Works:
The Greyhound God (novel)
The Best Seats in the House and Other Stories (stories)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Darlin’ Neal
Darlin’ Neal is an author of both fiction and nonfiction; in
addition to her completed novel and collection of short
stories, she is currently at work on a memoir. Her work
has been published in many literary journals, and her
short story collection, Rattlesnakes and the Moon, was
selected as a finalist for the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize
for Short Fiction. Neal, who is a lecturer in the creative
writing and literature program at Clemson University, has
been equally successful as an educator. To date, her
students have gone on to win O’Henry and Mary
McCarthy awards. Recently, she edited a special online
issue of The Mississippi Review.
Selected Works:
Rattlesnakes and the Moon (stories)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Ron Rash
Raised in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, Ron
Rash currently holds the John Parris Chair in
Appalachian Studies at Western Carolina
University. Rash is the author of novels, poetry
collections, and short story collections. He has
been the recipient of numerous awards, including
the O. Henry Prize, the Appalachian Book of the
Year Award, the Southern Book Award, and the
Sir Walter Raleigh award.
Selected Works:
One Foot in Eden (novel)
Saints at the River (novel)
The World Made Straight (novel)
Eureka Mill (poetry)
Among the Believers (poetry)
Chemistry and Other Stories (stories)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Tom Rash
Tom Rash is the Basic Skills Coordinator at
Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.
Over the years, he has written a variety of literary
essays and book reviews, and he has worked as a
professional proofreader. Presently, he is working on
a documentary film, with Steve Agnew, on the
influence and reputation of Thomas Wolfe’s famous
first novel, Look Homeward, Angel. The film is
entitled Look Homeward, Angel: A Buried Classic.
He is also leading a campaign to save the cabin
Wolfe lived in during his last visit to Asheville.
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Vivian Shipley
Vivian Shipley is the editor of the Connecticut Review at
Southern Connecticut State University. She is the
Connecticut State University Distinguished Professor. She
is also the author of five chapbooks and seven books of
poetry. Shipley is the recipient of numerous awards and has
been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize.
Selected Works:
Hardboot: Poems New and Old (poetry)
All of Your Messages Have Been Erased (poetry; forthcoming)
When There Is No Shore (poetry)
Gleanings: Old Poems, New Poems (poetry)
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Elizabeth Stansell
Elizabeth Stansell grew up in the Southeast and has resided in
the Upstate of South Carolina for the last ten years. She
received her master’s degree in English from Clemson
University, where she currently teaches full-time. At Clemson,
Stansell won the 2005-06 Shilstone Memorial Award for
outstanding master’s thesis with her work entitled “Saintly
Virgins, Demon Lovers, and Ideal Mothers: Representations of
Women in Neo-Victorian Fiction.” During her graduate studies,
Stansell visited the Ted Hughes papers at Emory University,
which resulted in an essay—“Ted Hughes and the Evolution of
‘Skylarks’”—subsequently published in the Spring 2006 issue
of The South Carolina Review. Her continued interest in Ted
Hughes has led to a study of the collaboration between
Hughes and artist Leonard Baskin, as well as between Baskin
and Richard Michelson.
Clemson Literary Festival
March 6-8, 2008
Mark Winchell
Mark Royden Winchell has taught at Clemson
University since 1985 and currently directs Clemson’s
program in the Great Works of Western Civilization. His
writing includes several award-winning biographies and
books of criticism, among other works. Over the past
quarter-century, Winchell has published over 120
essays and reviews in periodicals of all types. He has
also edited twelve issues of the South Carolina Review
and served as the journal’s long-time book-review
editor.
Selected Works:
Talmadge: A Political Legacy, A Politician’s Life (biography;
with Herman E. Talmadge)
Cleanth Brooks and the Rise of Modern Criticism (criticism)
Reinventing the South (essays)
The Cause of Us All: Cultural Politics and the American South
(nonfiction; forthcoming)