In addition to headliner Rick Bass, seven writers will read from their works as part of Western Carolina University’s Literary Festival, held April 5-7. Admission to festival presentations is free, excluding Josephine Humphreys’ reading, which is part of the Lectures, Concerts and Exhibition Series. Tickets to that reading are $3 for Western faculty and staff, and non-WCU students, and $5 for all others.

Natasha Trethewey will present a reading at 3:30 p.m. on April 7 in the theater of Western’s A.K. Hinds University Center. She has received numerous prizes for her poetry, including the Lillian Smith Award for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alabama State Council on the Arts. She is the author of three poetry collections – Domestic Work, Bellocq’s Ophelia and the forthcoming Native Guard. She teaches at Emory University.

Robert Conley, an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma, has published 34 novels since 1986, and his poems and short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. He is a member of the Western Writers of America and winner of Spur Awards for his novels Nickajack and The Dark Island. Conley will read from his work at 11 a.m. on April 7 in the University Center theater.

Charleston, S.C. author Josephine Humphreys is noted for her sensitive evocations of family life in the South. Her novels include Dreams of Sleep, which won the 1985 PEN/Hemingway Award, Rich in Love and the historical novel No Where Else on Earth. Humphreys’ reading, part of Western’s Lectures, Concerts and Exhibitions series, will take place at 7:30 p.m. on April 6 in the recital hall of Western’s Coulter Building.

James Brasfield, a member of Western’s faculty from 1984 to 1987, currently teaches in the English department at Penn State University. His poems and translations have appeared in publications such as The Southern Review, Antaeus, The Iowa Review and The Wallace Stevens Journal. His books include The Selected Poems of Oleh Lysheha (a translation with the author) and Inheritance and Other Poems. Brasfield will present a reading at 3 p.m. on April 5 in the University Center theater.

Mark Cox, professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, has received many honors for his four books of poetry. His most recent work is Natural Causes, published through the University of Pittsburgh Press Pitt Poetry Series. Cox will read from his work at 10 a.m. on April 6 in the University Center theater, and also will lead a poetry workshop for Western students during his visit to Cullowhee.

A poet and fiction writer, Charlotte Holmes teaches at Penn State University. She is a past recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, three Pushcart Prize nominations and citations for excellence in Best American Essays, Best American Stories, and the O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology. Holmes will give a reading at 11 a.m. on April 5 in the University Center theater.

Sarah Messer, a poet and nonfiction writer, is the author of Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England’s Oldest Continuously Lived-In House and a book of poetry, Bandit Letters. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, she is a professor of creative writing at UNC-Wilmington. Messer will read from her work at 3:30 p.m. on April 6 in the University Center theater, and also will lead a nonfiction workshop for students.

Writers, including Holmes, Messer, Brasfield, Cox and Humphreys, along with novelist Rick Boyer, Western professor of English, and Ron Rash, Western’s Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies, will participate in a Writer’s Roundtable at 2 p.m. on April 6 in the University Center theater.

For more information, contact Western’s English department at 828.227.7264, e-mail Brian Gastle at bgastle@email.wcu.edu or check out the festival Web site at http://www.wcu.edu/as/english/litfestival.