ISSUED: 3 September 2013
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Shepherd University’s 2013 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence will be Kentucky Poet Laureate Frank X Walker, who will accept the Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award and deliver the Scarborough Society Lecture at the West Virginia Humanities Council Awards Ceremony September 26 at 8 p.m. in Erma Ora Byrd Hall.
During his residency, Walker will participate in a variety of programs, including selecting the winners of the West Virginia Fiction Competition and serving as editorial advisor for the “Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Frank X Walker Volume VI.” While on campus, he will talk about voices from Affrilachia, the writing life, and social issues in Appalachia.
Walker is director of the African American and Africana Studies Program at the University of Kentucky, editor of “PLUCK!, the New Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture,” and has written the poetry collections “When Winter Come: the Ascension of York,” “Black Box: Poems,” “Buffalo Dance: the Journey of York,” “Affrilachia,” and “Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride.” Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” in 1991, in an effort to make Appalachian literary studies more inclusive.
He received a Thomas D. Clark Literary Award for Excellence, an Actors Theatre Keeper of the Chronicle Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship in Poetry, and two honorary doctorates.
For a schedule of activities for the 2013 Frank X Walker residency beginning September 23, visit http://www.shepherd.edu/ahwirweb/.
The residency programs are supported by the West Virginia Humanities Council, the West Virginia Center for the Book, the Shepherd University Foundation, and other community and university partners.
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