LUNCH WITH BOOKS LIVESTREAM: Wheeling Poetry Series - Anna Egan Smucker and Bill King

June 08, 2021
12:00pm - 1:00pm

West Virginia-based poets Anna Egan Smucker and Bill King will be our guests for our seventeenth program in the Wheeling Poetry Series,  June 8, 2021. We are pleased to welcome back veteran LWB presenter, Anna, author of the children's books No Star Nights, Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story, and Brother Giovanni's Little Reward: How the Pretzel Was Born, and most recently, a chapbook of poetry, Rowing Home published by Finishing Line Press in 2019. And we are excited to welcome LWB newcomer, Bill King, Professor of English at Davis & Elkins and Pushcart Prize nominee. King's first chapbook of poetry, The Letting Go, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018.

The Wheeling Poetry Series is organized and hosted by West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman. https://marcharshman.com

➤ Download a Wheeling Poetry Series booklet for this program. 

This program will be available to watch live on Facebook Live, on YouTube, and on the OCPL website's LWB Livestream page.  Log into your Facebook or YouTube account during the program to leave questions for our presenters in the comments box. They will answer them during the live broadcast. 

PRESENTER BIOS: 
Anna Egan Smucker is an award-winning author of nine books. No Star Nights, her memoir about growing up in the steel mill town of Weirton, WV won the International Reading Association Children's Book Award. Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story and Brother Giovanni's Little Reward: How the Pretzel Was Born represented WV at the National Book Festival in D.C. Fallingwater: The Building of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Masterpiece, co-authored with Marc Harshman, garnered starred reviews and was named an Amazon Nonfiction Book of the Month. Recipient of a WV Arts Commission Artist Fellowship Award, her poems have been published in many anthologies and literary journals. 

Bill King grew up outside of Roanoke, Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and his poetry has appeared in Kestrel, Appalachian Heritage, Still: The Journal, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Naugatuck River Review, and many other journals and anthologies. He holds an M.A. in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Georgia and teaches creative writing and literature at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, WV. 

ABOUT THE WHEELING POETRY SERIES:

Launched in September 2015, the "Wheeling Poetry Series features readings by some of the finest poets from our Appalachian region and beyond.  The series came about as a result of an ongoing conversation with West Virginia Poet Laureate, Marc Harshman, who felt that there was a need for a dependable venue in which to present major American poets reading and talking about their work here in West Virginia and more specifically here in Wheeling.

Harshman had long lamented the loss of the James Wright Festival which had been held for many years in Wright's
home town of Martins Ferry, Ohio. "That annual event was a towering success," Harshman explained, "lauded by poets across the U.S., and I see no reason why such a success cannot be replicated here in Wheeling. And some will remember that frequently some of the programming for the Wright festival was, in fact, held at various locations
in Wheeling."

~ View booklets from previous Wheeling Poetry Series programs in our Document Center

NEXT WHEELING POETRY SERIES: MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Carrie Conners & Jacob Strautmann will be our guests for our next Wheeling Poetry Series, July 27, 2021.

Originally from West Virginia, Carrie Conners first poetry collection, Luscious Struggle was selected as a 2020 Paterson Poetry Prize Finalist. Her second collection, Species of Least Concern, was a finalist of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award and will be published in the winter of 2021-22.

Awarded a 2018 Massachusetts Poetry Fellowship, Marshall County native Jacob Strautmann’s debut book of poems The Land of the Dead Is Open for Business is currently available from Four Way Books.

Lunch With Books Livestream starts at noon on Facebook and YouTube.

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"Lunch With Books" is the library’s flagship program for adult patrons. These lunchtime programs feature authors, poets, musicians, historians, and more every Tuesday at noon. Bring lunch (to your computer), feed your brain!