Organized by Western Carolina University’s Department of English, this year’s Spring Literary Festival expands from three days to four and celebrates diversity with festival guests including slam poet Mayda Del Valle, humorous nonfiction author Ayun Halliday, Affrilachian Poets member Crystal Wilkinson and Appalachian novelist Silas House.

The festival also hosts its first bilingual poetry reading with the work of Randall Watson and its first N.C. Poet Laureate’s Panel composed of Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer, Mark Smith-Soto and Jaki Shelton Green.

“Students and people in the surrounding community have a wonderful chance to hear some of America’s greatest writers – live – all in one place,” said Mary Adams, associate professor of English and festival director. “These writers represent different regions, genres and traditions. I hope people come away with new ideas for their own reading and writing.

“Most importantly, I hope that they come away with a changed sense of what ‘literature’ means – not just written words by long-dead writers but something going on passionately in every medium and every setting – over the air waves, in coffee houses, under bridges. It’s about anything and everything, including the stuff happening in our lives every day,” Adams said.

All panel discussions and book readings are free and open to the public. Admission to the Shakespeare play performance at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 28, at the Fine and Performing Arts Center will be $5 for Western students, $7 for Western faculty and staff and $10 general admission.

Festival sponsors are the English department; Office of the Chancellor; Office of the Provost; Lectures, Concerts and Exhibitions Series; Last Minute Productions; the North Carolina Arts Council; and Western’s Women’s Center, which is cosponsoring three writers and hosting a gender conference in coordination with the literary festival.

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

March 27

2 p.m. — North Carolina Poet Laureate’s Panel: Kathryn Stripling Byer presents Mark Smith-Soto, Jaki Shelton Green and Anthony Abbott. University Center Theater.

• North Carolina Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer has published books of poetry including Catching Light, Black Shawl, Wildwood Flower and The Girl in Mist of the Harvest.

• Mark Smith-Soto’s first full-length volumes of poems was titled Our Lives Are Rivers. He recently released a new volume called Any Second Now.

• Jaki Shelton Green’s books include Dead on Arrival and Masks. She is working on her first novel and the “Juke Joint” project, documenting an African-American cultural phenomenon.

• Anthony Abbott’s poetry collections are The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat, A Small Thing Like a Breath and The Search for Wonder in the Cradle of the World. His novel is Leaving Maggie Hope.

7:30 p.m. — Appalachian Writers: Ron Rash, Western’s Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Culture, presents Silas House and Crystal Wilkinson. University Center Theater.

• Novelist Silas House authored Clay’s Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves and The Coal Tattoo.

• Crystal Wilkinson, author of Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street, belongs to a writing collective called The Affrilachian Poets.

March 28

2 p.m. — Bilingual poetry reading by Randall Watson and interpreter. University Center Theater.

• Randall Watson’s first full-length collection of poems, The Sleep Accusations, was published simultaneously in Mexico as a dual-language edition.

7:30 p.m. – Shenadoah Shakespeare Company performs “Much Ado About Nothing.” Tickets are $5 for Western students, $7 for Western faculty and staff, and $10 general admission. Fine and Performing Arts Center.

March 29

7:30 p.m. – Dorothy Allison. University Center Theater.

• Novelist Dorothy Allison wrote Bastard Out of Carolina and the New York Times best-selling novel Cavedweller.

9 p.m. — Slam Poet Mayda Del Valle. Club Illusions in the University Center.

• Chicago native Mayda Del Valle was featured in two seasons of HBO’s “Def Poetry.” She was the first Latina and youngest poet to win the Individual National Poetry Slam title in Seattle.

March 30

12 p.m. – Panel Discussion: Rick Bragg, Ayun Halliday and Randall Watson. University Center Theater.

2 p.m. – Ayun Halliday. University Center Theater.

• Ayun Halliday’s nonfiction includes Job Hopper: The Checkered Career of a Down-Market Dilettante; No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late; and The Big Rumpus: A Mother’s Tale from the Trenches. She also publishes the East Village Inky.

7 p.m. – Rick Bragg. University Center Theater.

• Rick Bragg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter formerly with The New York Times, hit the best-seller charts with his first book, All Over but the Shoutin. His books include Ava’s Man and I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story.