ISSUED: 24 February 2014
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Shepherd University’s 2013 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence Frank X Walker has won a 2014 NAACP Image Award.
Walker’s book “Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers” won in the Outstanding Literary Work-Poetry category at the 45th NAACP Image Awards ceremony February 22. The awards celebrate the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of television, music, literature, and film and also honor individuals or groups who promote social justice through creative endeavors.
Walker worked with the Shepherd University Appalachian Heritage Committee and the West Virginia Center for the Book in planning events for the 2013 Appalachian Heritage Festival and writers’ events, including the West Virginian Fiction Competition.
The Anthology of Appalachian Writers Frank X Walker Volume VI will be available April 1. It contains scholarship on Walker and new fiction by the Kentucky Poet Laureate and an array of Appalachian writers from across the country including West Virginia’s Poet Laureate Mark Harshman.
The anthologies are available at local bookstores and the Shepherd University Bookstore’s trade books’ link at www.shepherdbook.com. For more information about the Walker residency go to www.shepherd.edu/ahwirweb or contact Dr. Sylvia Shurbutt at sshurbut@shepherd.edu or 304-876-5207.
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